


Like a Fool at the Top of My Lungs

by redskyatmorning



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-16
Updated: 2012-08-16
Packaged: 2017-11-12 06:04:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redskyatmorning/pseuds/redskyatmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark is dead, and Steve will go through hell and back if it means he can bring Tony back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Fool at the Top of My Lungs

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Echo' by Jason Walker (which, incidentally, is an excellent accompaniment to this fic.)
> 
> Also, I have taken many, many liberties with Norse mythology here, so bear that in mind.

  
Some of the last words that Tony Stark say in this life go something along the lines of "Thor! Of all the fucking superhuman alien god-things on your fucking planet, can no one actually keep your temper tantrum of a pseudo-brother under house arrest?"  
  
As always, everyone hears but no one actually listens. They can't be blamed for that, either, because the Avengers are all very much engrossed in a battle against about twelve massive Asgardian monsters that Thor referred to as bilgesnipes, and don't have the time nor the inclination to pay attention to Tony's running commentary. The bilgesnipes themselves are brutish enough to make the Hulk look like an elegant gentleman of refined habits, as well as nearly impenetrable by Iron Man's repulsors, missiles, or any other sort of weaponry he can think to hurl at them. It's taking the combined efforts of all six of them, spread around Manhattan and connected only by the invisible threads (because wires are so last century) of Tony's specially designed communication devices, to stop them from rampaging into other areas of the city.  
  
His suit gleams blindingly as New York City sunlight, reflected by the windows of skyscrapers around him, hits the red and gold metal. He surveys the wreckage that is barely identifiable as Greenwich Village as he flies over to assist any one of his teammates, who, by the sounds of their grunting and crying out and general distress in his communicator, sorely need it.  
  
"Iron Man!" he hears Steve bark suddenly in his ear, sounding as though he's gasping for breath and is generally much the worse for wear. Worry pierces Tony's heart unexpectedly and slightly painfully (though it might just be a quickly blossoming bruise from the antler of the bilgesnipe he just knocked out).  
  
"I'm headed your way, Cap - "  
  
"No! There's - two of them are headed _your_ way, they're coming down 14th - I'll send help as soon as I can - "  
  
"Roger that," says Tony, expressly wishing that the help he gets is in the form of the Hulk.  
  
Grayish-green and scaly, the two creatures that are rampaging down 14th Street are roughly the dimensions of large elephants, but more resemble angry, fat moose in terms of features. The moose image is further exemplified with the massive antlers jutting out of their foreheads. Razor-sharp teeth and claws serve to complete the severely ugly package. Just as Tony thinks that he'll swerve around and get them from behind, one of them spots him in his conspicuous suit, shining from the sunlight, and begins to stampede excitedly towards him.  
  
"Fantastic," he grunts to himself as the bilgesnipe's antler grazes his already banged-up right arm as he deftly swerves to the left, playing for time. His usual diversionary tactics (sarcasm, insults and general confusion) are useless here.  
  
"Thor!" he yells over the comm instead, in order to vent his frustration. "How exactly did Loki transport twelve of these motherfuckers to Earth without you people noticing? Actually, how did he do it at all? And why the _hell_ is he nowhere to be seen so one of us can't go and beat the little shit up?"  
  
"Tony - man of metal - " Thor grunts, and Tony would find it kind of endearing how he tries to keep with Cap's policy of not using their actual names out on the field if it weren't for the fact that he's currently in severe pain as one bilgesnipe headbutts him into the other's scaly backside. "I am afraid - I do not know - the nature -  of Loki's plans - or even his whereabouts  - in this instance - "  
  
"Sir, the suit won't be able to take much more of this before power failure becomes imminent," interrupts JARVIS smoothly.  
  
Tony groans in frustration as he shoots high enough in to the sky so that the bilgesnipes can't reach him. He goes over his options for a split-second before deciding that it's time to take out the big guns. Figuratively, of course, because he's still got more finesse than War Machine. Speaking of which, he can almost hear Rhodey's voice in his head saying _Wow, I think you should lead with that one next time_ as he tells JARVIS to divert 90% of all power to the energy blades that he used all that time ago to destroy the Hammeroids. They're upgraded, now, of course, and so much more powerful. Enough, hopefully, to make bilgesnipe bacon out of these ugly bastards.  
  
The blast of red light from his suit is blinding. In the aftermath of the supercharged beam, he sees that the two creatures have fallen over each other, smoking slightly, turning the bar that they fell on into a heap of rubble. He idly thinks about how difficult it's going to be after this to convince the general public that all the property damage is not, in fact, their fault. Oh, well, plenty of time for that later.  
  
Tony cackles maniacally. "Cap, I've got these two down for the count," he says triumphantly into the communicator. "But I'm pretty much spent, the suit is quickly beginning to resemble scrap metal, and I can't take another one alone - "  
  
"Great. Good work, Iron Man. Hawkeye and Widow could use a hand down by 5th Avenue if ..."  
  
The rest of Steve's instructions, along with Tony's preening himself at the praise, all fly out of his head the moment he sees something altogether strange coming down the ruins of 14th Street straight towards him. There is a faint smoke from the wreckage enshrouding it, but Tony can make out what seems to be the silhouette of some kind of massive dog-like animal; it's much smaller and more graceful than anything that they've witnessed and fought today.  
  
"Uh, Cap? Are we fighting a giant wolf today, too, or do I need to go and sit down for a little while?" Tony says in an undertone.  
  
As the creature moves forward out of the smoke, Tony can see now that it is in fact a large golden wolf. A very, _very_ golden wolf - so much so that it appears to be glowing. Tony inches backwards, sincerely hoping that the creature is just a hallucination born of his concussed mind. As if to back up this explanation, his world spins dizzyingly as he steps away from it, an instinct he can't quite explain telling him to do so.  
  
"Iron - Tony, are you okay? Maybe you should head back to base, we can ... " Steve is still speaking in his ear, but Tony can't think to reply. He and this wolf are still locked in this tantalizing dance, he stepping backwards and it coming closer. Even though he closely matches its every move, it seems to keep drawing closer until it's only a couple of feet from Tony. He can see now that it has piercing green eyes, much more intelligent than that of any wild animal that he's ever seen (which, to be honest, is not many - he was always a very indoorsy type).  
  
"Tony? Tony - hold on, I'm coming to you - "  
  
"Sir, I recommend flying away. Very quickly. Now. Sir?"  
  
The wolf's gaze is hypnotic, and once Tony's eyes meet it, he finds himself unable to look away, or think anything other than _what the hell_? What's more, Tony's feet feel as though they are rooted to the spot, and the wolf soon reaches him, it's maw mere inches away from Tony's chestplate.  
  
"Good boy?" Tony offers weakly, and his voice sounds to him like it's coming from a far distance, or else underwater.  
  
Of course, that doesn't stop the wolf, with claws thick enough to rival Wolverine's, from tearing straight through the already dilapidated armor and into his skin. His chest explodes from pain like he's never felt before and he collapses onto the rubble beneath him.  His vision begins to grow even fuzzier, and the darkness around the edges of his world threatens to take over it completely. He looks down, feeling oddly detached, at the six long, deep gashes from collarbone to abdomen, one of them cutting through the still feebly flickering arc reactor.This shouldn't be possible, he thinks dimly, both the armour and the arc reactor are virtually indestructible.  He also registers a lot of red, either his own blood or the armour surrounding it; he can't tell the difference anymore.  
  
It feels as though the wolf has hooked it's teeth into the already gaping wounds and is now dragging Tony somewhere that is no longer New York City. But then, that can't be possible because another part of him can still feel the rubble beneath his back and - God, the pain, not dull and throbbing like he's used to, but like someone is tearing him apart from the inside out with a thousand - no, a million knifes -  
  
" _Tony_!" he hears a distant echo of Steve's' voice, and his face contorts itself into a small smile as a blur of red, white, blue and blond enters his fast-dimming line of sight. He tries to say something back, but he finds he can't quite make himself open his mouth. First time for everything, he reasons. It's the strangest feeling in the world, because he swears that there is Steve Rogers peeling off his faceplate and kneeling and stammering over where he's lying on solid New York ground, but then he's in the maw of the massive wolf in a land of pure white. Maybe this is what it feels like to die, then.  
  
"No, hey, Tony - stay with me, come on. Talk to me, Tony. Hey, I'm finally at the nineties now, just a couple of weeks and you can throw me that pop-culture-catch-up party that you promised. Tony? _I repeat, Iron Man is down! Tony is dying, I need_ \- I need some help ... Tony, please, don't go ... "  
  
He can indistinctly feel Steve's hand caressing his face.  
  
Then, with all of the resolve and determination of a man who once built a weaponized suit of armour out of a box of scraps, he opens his mouth to speak the last words that Anthony Edward Stark would say in this life.  
  
"Goodbye, Steve."  
  
His last distinct thought is that if he has to die, in the arms of Steve Rogers ranks very highly in the list of best places to do it. Then, just like that, he's gone.

  
*

  
The Avengers, or what's left of them, at least, are gathered in the main residential floor of Stark Tower. All of them are here except for Thor, who took off as soon as he was told of the situation, growling " _Loki..."_ God only knows where he's gone, or why. The only thing he said, bizarrely enough, was to not dispose of the body at all costs, because "perhaps we will be needing it before long."  
  
So there they all are, not two hours after that last mission ended, seated on the sofa that Tony had custom-made in order to fit all six of them comfortably. Now, with only four, it feels much too large.  Steve is seated in the middle, with Clint and Natasha to his left and Bruce to his right. They don't speak with one another, all looking at the same thing on the ground in front of them with a shocked and shaken silence. Steve is still covered in blood that's not his, glaring red, accusing him of being there yet not being able to fix it, to prevent it from happening altogether. He sighs, the first sound that any of them have made in what seems like days, and leans forward.  
  
On the plush white rug in front of them lies the dead body of one Tony Stark, still clad in the mangled Iron Man armour. Steve had taken off the helmet as soon as they returned and kicked it into a corner of the room, denting the wall where it landed slightly. It looks to him from there now with its omnipresent disapproving frown, no blue light in the eyes to signify the life behind it. _You_ , it seems to be saying sternly to Steve, _you could have stopped this. Shame on you._  
  
No one thought to cover the body out of respect, preferring to stare at their fallen teammate with gross fascination as they're doing right now. Staring at the mangled arc reactor, still feebly flickering to protect a  heart that's no longer beating, wondering how that could possibly have happened; staring at his eyes wide open, a twisted and lifeless parody of how they used to be when he'd get excited about some invention or other and run down to his lab, babbling to JARVIS; staring at his lips with the faint ghost of a smile, even now, playing around them, a glaring underestimation of the wide, toothy grin that flashed on his face when something genuinely amused him; staring at what, until two hours ago, used to be Tony Stark.  
  
Larger than life, he was, and now somehow even larger in death.  
  
Steve sighs again, and opens his mouth to speak. His voice comes out as a hoarse whisper. "I - I could've - " he begins, unsure of how to continue or even what he meant to say in the first place.  
  
"Steve," Natasha says more firmly than probably anyone else could have managed at that point, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Don't. You couldn't have done a thing - he was too far gone."  
  
Her voice is certain, but her hand is trembling on Steve's shoulder, as are her lips on her chalky face. Not even Natasha, the unshakable, can withstand this cataclysmic rocking of their world without crumbling slightly.  
  
This exchange somehow breaks the spell of silence that had settled over them all. Bruce thickly mumbles some excuse and rushes down to his lab with his head ducked and face averted; Clint and Natasha do similarly, except overly loud in order to compensate for the heavy silence that's settled like a thick layer of dust on everything in the tower. This leaves Steve, sitting and facing the dead man who'll never look at him again. Suddenly, every single awful thing he's ever said to Tony - and there's been quite a few over the many months - start to play in his mind, back from the very beginning to just last night. _Big man in a suit of armour, take that off and what are you? Stop pretending to be a hero._ And then: _Tony, are you ever serious about anything? Tony, I've got no_ time _for this._ As it turned out, he wasn't the one who was running out of time.  
  
This thought alone is enough to choke a sob from Steve's throat as a wave of sorrow, exhaustion and guilt floods over him. He doesn't know how long he ends up sitting there, except that midnight comes and goes and still he's there, studying his dead friend, wondering how it could have gone differently. Tony has been torn apart, he thinks, but then Steve is too; only his wounds run deeper, beneath the surface, invisible, but are being ripped afresh every single second that Tony is in his mind.  
  
He wonders if the pain of it, the guilt, will ever stop, but he remembers someone else, and another, and so many more, and he slams his fist into the glass coffee table, shattering it, because he knows better than most that it never really ends.  
  
*  
  
The silence resounding in Stark Tower during the next few days is more unbearable than any noise that Steve has ever heard, and he knows that the others feel the same. Yes, they still speak to each other, sometimes one or two of them even watch television (he tried once, but sickeningly shut it off after some news anchor or other was saying almost gleefully, "Rumours of Tony Stark's death have neither been confirmed nor denied..."), they spar in the gym and Bruce cooks in the kitchen. It's life as usual except for one big, glaring emptiness and Steve thinks he finally realizes how Tony felt with the hole in his chest, and he sincerely hopes Tony's doesn't - didn't - hurt quite as much as Steve's.

It's the little things that make the difference so painfully obvious: how JARVIS never offers his input anymore, and when spoken to, he merely says "yes" or "no" without any sassy additions like he used to, sounding more like a robot than ever; how Dummy just sits in the corner, faced down dejectedly, which should be an improvement over him attacking them if they so much as brush shoulders with Tony but somehow just makes everything worse; how they tried to do a movie night in order to take their minds off things but somehow all got up and left before the action even started because it just didn't work without obnoxious commentary; how there's always coffee in the carafe now in the mornings but there's no celebratory whoop from Clint because of the reason behind it; how they never hear the phrases 'Capsicle,' 'Jolly Green Giant,' 'Brucie goosie,' 'female Stalin,' 'Thor'eal,' and 'Agent Cupid' anymore. Things like that, things that you would never miss until you know they're gone for good.  
  
The only thing JARVIS has said to them in all the six days that Tony's been gone is to "please place sir's - sir - into this facility in his workshop ... " The technicalities of it were lost on Steve, but the 'facility' turned out to be some kind of airtight, scientific coffin in his lab that he designed for some reason that Steve doesn't want to think about for them to place his body in to prevent decay while they "awaited Mr. Thor's return." It seems futile and downright disrespectful to Steve to not give his friend a funeral right away, but he, along with the rest of the Tower, have pinned all of their desperate hopes on what the god might bring with him when he returns. Still, Steve had gingerly shut Tony's eyes and had asked Bruce to replace the mangled arc reactor with one of the spares, because it only seemed right. No one really goes into the lab now, not wanting to bear witness to the twisted Snow White-esque scene that would await them. The only people who have been down there are Pepper and Rhodey, the only ones other than the Avengers who know of what's happening, coming back up pale and shaken as they demand to be kept updated on what ever passes.  
  
This is the sixth night that has passed since he's been gone, and this is the sixth night in a row that Steve hasn't slept a wink. The others take one look at what he imagines to be sunken eyes with too-dark shadows beneath them in stark contrast to a sallow face, and quickly turn their heads from him, not following through with what were no doubt the same kind of bracing, comforting words that they've been passing around each other for the past six days. He knows it's not fair to them, because he was their friend too (maybe he even liked them better than him; Steve is never going to know now and it kills him), and they're having a tough enough time without him acting the way he is. But he can't help it.  
  
He's sitting on the large, wooden antique dining table - though it isn't used for much, not  even dining - on their communal floor, right by the matching liquor cabinet, still stocked fully because they can't bring themselves to touch it. Steve has considered it multiple times, except he knows it would be a waste anyway. It's almost five in the morning, and he's been sitting there motionless all night. Right now, he's just glad that no missions have come up, because he can't even so much as face the stars and stripes right now without feeling sick; fighting is truly out of the question. He surveys the five other chairs surrounding the rest of the table and feels a pang. Sometimes, after a particularly bad mission when they all couldn't sleep, Tony would call them all in, right here, for midnight poker.  
  
 _"Hmm..." Tony says, scratching his goatee. He pulls out a slip of paper and pen from seemingly nowhere (Steve's never actually seen him use an actual, bona fide pen, come to think of it) and scrawls 'the Mark II Iron Man suit, your very own miniaturized arc reactor, and an island in the South Pacific.' He places it in the middle of the table primly.  
  
"Friend Tony, I am afraid that is not a valid wager," argues Thor upon reading it.  
  
"Oh, but it is, hot stuff. I'll stand by that bet, I promise. I swear on - on JARVIS."  
  
"Please don't, sir," JARVIS chimes in, sending five of them into peals of laughter, eventually tugging a chuckle or two out of Tony as well.  
  
As it transpires, Bruce wins the round (as he nearly always does).  This doesn't sit well with Tony. "Okay, Brucie, you can wipe that shit-eating grin off of your face now. I liked your poker face much better, and that's saying something."  
  
Natasha snorts. "Oh, that's rich, Stark."  
  
"How so, Romanoff?"  
  
"Oh, I don't know, maybe because 'shit-eating grin' is your default setting - "  
  
"Is not. Steve can testify for me, right Steve?"  
  
"Well, of course _ Steve _can," Clint snickers, making Steve flounder for an appropriate response. He notices Tony's lips curve up ever so slightly.  
_  
The memory hurts more than Steve can imagine. However, his traitorous mind keeps playing a reel of similar ones until he really wishes he could just pass out or something, anything, to make them _stop_ -  
  
"Steve?"  
  
He whirls around, sending two chairs flying, to face Natasha standing right behind him, looking slightly awkward. He's had over a year, but he still finds her sneakiness unsettling.  
  
"Oh, hi, Natasha," he says, clearing his throat to make his voice recognizable from the hoarse whisper it had become from lack of use. "I was just, um ... "  
  
Steve gestures to the table and fallen chairs, feeling a blush creeping onto his cheeks. Thankfully, Natasha doesn't let him finish, cutting him off with a strained, "I know."  
  
He then realizes, maybe only by the shadows masking even the vivid red of her hair, that he's been sitting in complete darkness this whole time. "Um, JARVIS?" he says tentatively.  
  
"Yes?" JARVIS is no more responsive, or indeed human-like, than he was yesterday.  
  
"Could you turn the lights to - " He smiles, remembering something. "To 23.674 percent?"  
  
He swears he can hear JARVIS sigh, but there's a note of something in his voice, and that's a good sign. "Of course, Captain."  
  
Steve then turns to Natasha, swallowing hard. "Listen, I have to say something. I - I want to apologize. I haven't exactly been a good team leader in the past few days - I mean, I know it's been hard on all of us, but I shouldn't have - I should help, somehow, instead of - "  
  
"Steve, shut up."  
  
He is stunned into silence by her reply.  "But - "  
  
She's taken a seat next to him at the table after he shamefacedly fixed the chair situation, and now she's giving him a look that Steve remembers that somewhere in the distant past wished would never be used on him.  
  
"Yeah, you're right - it's been hard for us, but Steve, you can't be expected to fix things every time they go wrong, you just can't, so for God's sake _stop_ beating yourself up over it. He was - you and him were - different from him and rest of us, anyway."  
  
To actually have a proper talk, no matter how short it's been, is a relief that Steve would compare to finding an oasis after months of wandering dry-mouthed in a desert. Before he knows it, all the anguish that seems impossibly compressed into the few days since Tony's been gone is spilling over from his tightly bottled brain onto Natasha. Of all of the Avengers, he expected her to be the least - well, like she's being now, but he was sorely mistaken.  
  
He talks at length about how he _felt_ the life slip out of Tony Stark as he died in Steve's arms, how he knows he could have stopped it somehow, if he had gotten there sooner, if he hadn't expected Tony to take down two monsters on his own, if he had done _something_ other than what he had done, what had resulted in the death of his friend _in his own arms_. He thinks he repeats that a lot, but to be honest, he is only dimly aware of what he's saying to her, just relieved to get it all out. She doesn't complain, though, not once, and just keeps murmuring things like "I know," and "It's okay." Some disengaged part of his brain idly wonders _why_ she's doing this for him, listening to his babble. He remembers her history with Tony from the black-and-white block print of their SHIELD files, and then he thinks it might be because out of everyone she was really the only one who knew him the best, and she's fond of a lot of people a lot more than she lets on.  
  
Steve also ends up mentioning the fact that he hasn't slept for six nights in a row, and is thankful when Natasha doesn't do anything like try to force him into bed.  
  
"I've just been sitting here, you know? I've just - I can't even go into my room because he designed all of our floors on his own and I mean, that's just like him, isn't it? You thinks he's an ass, and then he goes and does something like that and pretends it's nothing and won't even accept thanks. And you can see the thought that he put into it and I just - I can't face that, I can't. So I'm here, except it's hardly any better. Because - I don't know if - anyway, pretty much every single time I couldn't sleep and I'd go down to the gym, I'd see - he'd just be sitting here, right here. It would be 2AM, 3AM, 4AM, and he'd be here, Tony'd be here, he'd - "  
  
Steve breaks off. The image is as clear as day in his mind's eye - Tony, a glass of whiskey in his hand and a bottle on the table from the liquor cabinet behind him. It would be almost complete darkness, with the lights on at some bizarre decimalled number from 20 to 25 percent ("to keep JARVIS on his toes"). Most of the time he'd have his tablet and he'd be reviewing some design or other on it, but a few times he would just be at the table, drinking, thinking about God knows what, his face lit only by the faint glow of the arc reactor. Steve doesn't know how often Tony did this late-night drinking and working. About two-thirds of the times that Steve would go down to do some punching (only a couple of times a month, now, but nearly every day when they just started out), Tony would be there as well. In fact, sometimes when Steve woke up too early or slept too late, he'd go downstairs under the pretext of the gym just to see if Tony was there, doing his thing. He usually was.  
  
"Then he'd call me over to sit and he'd pour me a drink and we'd talk about - God knows what, we'd just talk, sometimes for a couple of minutes, sometimes for a few hours. It's the weirdest thing, really, because you'd think he has - had - better things to do, but apparently not. Anyway, it was ... God, Natasha, I'm sorry. I don't know - you should go sleep, I shouldn't..."  
  
She's looking at him, an eyebrow slightly raised. "No, no, keep going. I know that you - um, you should get it off your chest. It's just funny, because sometimes he'd talk to me too, here. Same thing, I'd be going down to the gym at night, and I'd see him and we'd talk for a bit, have a drink in the dark, before he went back to his lab." Her brow furrows as she remembers something. "Huh, I guess that's what he meant that one time. He said, 'What is this, Tony Stark's Life Coaching Booth or something? Do you people have nothing better to be doing, like, I don't know, sleeping?'"  
  
Steve smiles at that, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Well. I guess we're carrying on the legacy, then."  
  
Something stirs in Natasha's eyes when he says that. "Thor'll come back soon, and he'll have something. Something to fix this mess."  
  
Steve sincerely doubts this, because how can you reverse death? And even if Thor could, being a god and all, he wouldn't, because it's the natural order of things and gods above all else respect that. He's about to voice this opinion when Natasha looks to him, a faint smirk playing around her lips.  
  
"You haven't noticed, have you?"  
  
When he starts to respond, she puts a finger to her lips and motions for him to listen. Just then, he hears a faint rumbling that gets progressively louder, and then a flash of light illuminates the room for a fraction of a second.  
  
"It's been a near-constant thunderstorm for the past six days, Steve. Something's going on up there, and Thor is involved. So come on, Captain," she says, giving the same kind of hollow smile that he had just done. "Have a little faith."  
  
"What if - " he begins before he can stop himself.  
  
"Either way, we'll make it through," she cuts him off firmly. "Somehow. Good night, Steve."  
  
A few minutes after she noiselessly makes her way back upstairs, he too goes to his room and,  for the first time in too long, he sleeps.  
  
*  

  
Clint makes waffles the next morning for breakfast, and Steve can smell them from his room, two floors below the kitchen. A hint of hunger begins to prod at his stomach. He knows that he hasn't been eating nearly enough for his metabolism in the past couple of days, so he decides to finally join the team for breakfast. It's only to keep himself healthy, because Steve knows more than anyone that without his body, he's worthless.  
  
After he's done with his morning routine, he ambles upstairs to the kitchen where Bruce, Clint and Natasha are sitting with coffee and waffles. As they hear Steve enter, all three of their heads swivel sharply in his direction. He only then notices that it's well past noon and he smiles apologetically. "Sorry, I - it was a late night."  
  
He avoids Natasha's gaze studiously, already embarrassed about their conversation the night before.  
  
"No sweat," says Clint from where he's perched on the countertop with an emptying cup of coffee. "It's just nice to see you among the living again."  
  
A grimace crosses his face nearly as soon as he says it. Steve is saved from pretending like he didn't notice anything wrong with that by a very welcome sound - the ding of an elevator. The only people who are allowed inside Stark Tower without any of the residents being alerted beforehand by JARVIS are, well, the residents of Stark Tower. This can mean only one thing.  
  
"Greetings, friends!"  
  
The relief felt in the kitchen is palpable as Thor stomps into the room, clad in full Asgardian armour and cape. This pleasant atmosphere, however, is quite ruined when they see who he's dragging along on his arm.  
  
"You little - " Clint snarls as Loki is reluctantly pushed into the kitchen. He, too, is in Asgardian clothing, the green contrasting with Thor's red, but it's different - less ornate - than what they've seen, and his hair is shorter than before as well.  
  
"I told you they would take it well," Loki looks up at Thor with an air of smugness, and Steve is, as always, a little thrown by the sheer familiarity between Thor and Loki. He knows that they are - were? - brothers, but it still is sometimes unsettling.  
  
Natasha puts a hand on Clint's shoulder, and apparently that's enough for him to not charge at Loki, but his expression is still homicidal.  
  
"Their reaction is just, brother, from your past actions," Thor replies sternly. "But - onto more pressing matters. Friends, I do not know for sure what occurred a week past, but I do know that my brother has a hand in it. He has said, however, that he does not, that he knows nothing of it, and hence I brought him to you for lack of a better option."  
  
Steve is making a valiant effort, just as Clint is, to not go wring Loki's throat that very minute, if only for his small, short smirk when Thor mentioned what happened.  
  
" _Thor_ ," Loki says and Steve would swear that he's flat-out whining. "I have done nothing, I swear it!"  
  
"How do you explain the bilgesnipes, then? As far as I know - "  
  
"Not much, then - "  
  
" - They are not native to Midgard, and who else in the Nine Realms would have malicious intent towards this world save for you?"  
  
"Perhaps, then, you should spend your resources on finding that person instead of persecuting me!"  
  
Something occurs to Steve just then, and he feels incredibly stupid for not mentioning it to Thor earlier. "Hey, wait a second," he cuts in. "Thor, um, is anyone in the - in your world somehow affiliated with - " He struggles to remember what were some of Tony's last words. "Giant wolves?"  
  
Thor considers this for only a fraction of a second before he turns to Loki again, slamming him against the wall and cracking it slightly. " _Loki_!" he growls again. "You have lied to me yet again. You _were_ involved in this untimely death of Tony Stark."  
  
To hear it put like that by Thor, who was supposed to be their white knight, feels like someone driving a stake through Steve's chest.  
  
Loki makes some choking noises and points to the throat that Thor is squeezing, who immediately lets go, surprised, as though he were not aware of what he was doing. "Liesmith of Asgard though I am, I have not lied to you. What is this great wolf that you associate with me, _Odinson_?"  
  
"You are quite dull for someone who always would refer to himself as the intelligent one. Fenrir the wolf is your child, is he not, or have you forgotten?"  
  
"Well, yes, but so is the Midgard Serpent, and Hel, and Sleipnir. I do not control the actions of my children." He smirks. "Every time Sleipnir throws your father off of his back, do you blame me? No. This is no different."  
  
To Steve, the two gods' conversation has lost all sense, no matter how desperately he's trying to follow it. At this junction, however, Clint feels the need to interrupt. "Okay, hold on, I'm sorry, but you're daddy to a giant snake, an eight-legged horse, the Norse version of Lucifer and a giant wolf? Wow, I - you know what, the sad thing about that is that it's not even surprising."  
  
Loki turns to Clint, eyes flashing menacingly, though his lips are still curled into a silky smile. "Ah, I see. You've taken it upon yourself to become the comedian of this motley band of misfits in the passing of Tony Stark. I must say, you have much to learn before you reach his calibre. He was truly one of a kind."  
  
This is too much for Steve, not only to hear something like that come from Loki's derisive mouth because he didn't deserve to even know someone like Tony Stark, let alone be here poking fun when _he_ isn't, but also because of what seems like a pointed reference to the deafening silence that has been reverberating around Stark Tower for a week, with nothing being able to fill the obnoxious, loud, rude, sarcastic hole that Tony had left behind. Before he knows it, the now empty mug in his hand has exploded.  
  
"Oh, I'm - " he jumps up, attempting to gather the shards scattered across the table. He still is sometimes fascinated and frightened by the force of his own strength. Even his teammates are looking at him strangely now, but not without sympathy. " - so sorry - didn't mean -"  
  
An unpleasant laugh cuts through his apologies. "Oh, I'm so sorry," Loki drawls sardonically. "I had forgotten that the wound was still so fresh."  
  
"But it can be _healed_ , Loki, if only you would cooperate," Thor says, no longer thundering, but looking at Loki in the kind of irresistible way that makes  even Clint give up his pizza for him.  
  
"No, br - Thor, it can't be! He is dead, and not by my hand. I have no grudge against Tony Stark. His whiskey is excellent. You - " at this, he glances towards Steve. "You must learn to live without him, I suppose, for he is gone."  
  
The kind of pain that is gnawing at Steve's heart is something like he hasn't felt for a long time, since far before the serum had ever seen the inside of his body. He doesn't know who to believe, who to listen to, and he's had it with this magic stuff giving him false hope and then snatching it away just like that.  
  
"Loki, do you think me a fool?" Thor is still at it with Loki, not knowing a lost cause when he sees one.  
  
"Yes, Thor, I do. I'm glad you finally - "  
  
"I have visited Folkvangr and Valhalla, and Tony is nowhere to be found there. This suggests trickery, and you are, after all, the god of mischief."  
  
"Have you possibly considered the fact that your friend has not enough valour to be admitted to those halls?" Loki says with deliberate malice. "Died in battle though he has, he did spend the better part of his life as a spineless coward, perhaps - "  
  
The rest of his sentence is cut off with Bruce stalking quickly out of the kitchen, his shoulders shaking with unmitigated fury, seeking out his Hulk-proof room. Steve reflects for a moment on Bruce's relationship with Tony, and feels awful for what seems like the millionth time in this week alone for not paying more attention to his teammates and instead holing himself up into his own grief. Natasha and Clint, and probably himself as well, all look as though they aren't far from doing the same as Bruce.  
  
"Keep talking and you'll have another thing coming," Natasha says, still somehow the picture of calm, now spooning yogurt into her mouth.  
  
Loki changes tack quickly."I apologize. Sentiment, it's confusing to me," he says by way of explanation. Thor looks sadly toward him, but if he notices, he doesn't show it.  
  
"Okay, so perhaps I haven't been entirely honest with the lot of you," he says after a pause, to four no- _really?_ expressions. "It is true, that I am not directly related to the death of Tony Stark. However, the wolf Fenrir apparently does, and he currently resides with my daughter, his sister, Hel, in - well, in Hel."  
  
Thor interjects. "Fenrir is still bound by Gleipnir in Asgard, brother."  
  
"What?" Loki laughs incredulously. "No, I set him free a long time ago. Have you lot still not noticed? Shocking, how dull you all are." A bitter smirk crosses his face. "Makes me almost proud to be a Jotunn."  
  
"Loki..." Thor begins, gentler, but Loki brushes him off.  
  
"Yes, well, anyway, Fenrir is most likely the wolf that killed your friend, and so the logical explanation is that he dragged him to Hel. So, yes. That would be your best bet. Perhaps  Hel - she has always had a vindictive streak - "  
  
"Wonder where that came from," Clint mumbles, tugging reluctant smiles from Natasha and Steve. Loki rolls his eyes.  
  
" - Perhaps Hel, as I was saying, decided to take him in recompense for what Thor over here took from her. So, my advice: go to Hel. Now, let me leave."  
  
Thor looks aghast, still clinging to Loki's arm in his iron grip. "Not - Balder?"  
  
"Yes, Balder. Perhaps you should have let him stay dead, as was the natural order of the things. Your friend Tony must now pay the price for that. Now, let me _leave_."  
  
"Fine, then, I shall go and retrieve Friend Tony from Hel's tainted grasp - "  
  
"Watch how you speak, Odinson, she is my daughter," Loki interrupts Thor testily. "Anyway, she would not take kindly to seeing you."  
  
"Fine, then - I shall send Sif, or - "  
  
Loki sighs, cutting in again. "I don't know why I'm helping you, but I fear they would not be best for the task. They would abandon it as soon as difficulty arose - you must send someone who cares for the man enough to see it through."  
  
Steve feels, for the first time in what feels like so long that it can't possibly be only seven days, hope rising in his chest like a beam of light blasting through the dark, twisted sorrow that's grown like brambles around his heart. "I'll go," he says immediately, firmly.  
  
"Captain," says Thor uncertainly, after a short silence in which they all glance hesitantly at a defiant Steve. "It is a perilous task to undertake alone - "  
  
"I'll do it, I don't care." Unlike the empty assurances of 'I'm fine,' which has been essentially all he's been saying these past days, he means every word he says. If it means getting Tony, he will actually go to Hel and back to do it, if only to see his face one more time, if only to get to say all the things that went unsaid because he foolishly believed that they would have more time, years and years, to say them.  
  
"Like hell you will," says a voice from behind Thor and Loki, and Steve jumps, but it's only Bruce, leaning against the doorframe, looking weary but still clad in the same purple shirt and jeans he was before. "We'll all go."  
  
"Like hell," Steve echoes, adamant. "If something - people need the Avengers. We can't all just go and - if something goes wrong - "  
  
"Hel probably won't take kindly to five oafs traipsing through her territory, anyway. One is best," Loki adds, looking more than a little amused at the minor skirmish between the remainder of the team.  
  
Clint and Natasha exchange a glance that speaks volumes. "Fine," Natasha speaks for them both, and then Clint adds, "But, let it be noted, we're not happy about not coming."  
  
Steve nods, and looks to Bruce and Thor. Thor nods once. "If it must be so, Captain, than you are the - ah - most-suited for the task. You have my consent."  
  
Bruce is the only one left who's unsure. "Tony ... " he begins, but changes his mind and continues with, "Okay, yeah, who am I to stop you? Good luck, Steve."  
  
Their exchange is being watched by Loki with almost - bizarrely enough - gleeful eyes. He turns to Thor and says, "Oh my. Is this - tell me this is not a matter of l - "  
  
At that moment, Thor does something decidedly un-Thor-like, and stomps on Loki's foot, so hard that tears come into the god of mischief's eyes. Thor, Clint, Natasha and Bruce are all reluctantly grinning, but Steve is completely nonplussed.  
  
*  
  
Steve knows that he's about to go on a dangerous, possibly fatal, trek through damnation. He knows that he might not see his friends ever again, or live to see tomorrow. He knows all of this, so why the hell can't he stop grinning like a fool? He's already gotten a couple of strange looks from Clint as he jogs through the Tower, assembling all that he might need for the journey, but his smile is constantly plastered on his face. He thinks - scratch that, he knows it's because the idea of knowing that Tony can be brought back, and that he can do it, is the best thing he's ever heard in his entire life. Better than being able to finally join the military, better than hearing Peggy agree to go on a date with him, better than anything he can possibly imagine. So he smiles, really and truly smiles, to make for the unshed tears and tight lips of the past week.  
  
Only now does his smile falter, when his shield is strapped onto his back, and he's wearing the stars and stripes beneath a regular shirt and jeans (Tony had enhanced the uniform with adamantium and some other fancy stuff to make it as close to impermeable as possible), and heavy boots. He has a feeling that he doesn't need much luggage, and Thor assures him that "there is no hunger and thirst in the realm of Hel." All he has is a sleeping bag, strategically folded so he can strap it to his back behind the shield. His friends are lined up outside on the roof of Stark Tower, where the portal to another world was opened all that time ago, ready to say their goodbyes. Steve swallows hard and studies them all, because it could be the last time he sees them.  
  
"Just - come back," says Bruce intensely. "We can't lose another one, especially not you. Good luck, Steve."  
  
Clint quirks an eyebrow and says as easily as he can manage, "Bon voyage, Cap. See you soon."  
  
Natasha is the only one still smiling slightly as she says,  "Go get 'em, Steve. Raise a little hell, why don't you?"  
  
Steve smiles back, lifts a hand in greeting to the rest of them and turns to Thor, who looks down at him. "Ready, Captain?"  
  
"As I'll ever be," Steve replies, bracing himself to follow the god, hellward-bound.  
  
*

  
Just when he gets used to the first, Steve is thrust into yet another mystifying, unfamiliar world, this one far more dizzying in it's splendour and strangeness than even the peak of  twenty-first century technology is to him. The Bifrost is quite unlike anything that he has ever seen before: a bridge made of the light of every colour of the rainbow flowing seamlessly into one another as far as the eye can see, the glowing gold of it in stark contrast to the dark vacuum of space around him and Thor. He can't help but gape in wonder around him, hardly paying attention to anything but what feels like the mysteries of the universe simultaneously unraveling and weaving tighter all around him. Thus, before he knows it, after some beams of light and a rumbling voice that he hardly registers, they have arrived at their destination.  
  
A vast expanse of nothing is what stretches out in front of Steve as they reach the ninth of the Nine Realms. All he can see is a fine, grey fog and nothing beyond that, save for what appears to be some trees dotted here and there on the horizon.  
  
"Nine days and nine nights," Thor says, "You must travel through these dark valleys. After that, you will know where to go."  
  
Steve swallows hard and steels himself.  
  
Thor turns to look at him. For all of his being prescribed as rather dense, jokingly by his friends and not so much by his brother, Steve can see a certain kind of wisdom in Thor's blue eyes as he smiles at Steve. "Captain. You know that I - and the rest of us - would be eternally in your debt for retrieving Friend Tony from his unrighteous death. But please, do not lose yourself in the undertaking."  
  
Steve nods, and Thor says, "Godspeed," and is gone in a flash of rainbow light. Steve is alone.  
  
He steps forward into the mist. The ground beneath his feet is hard and slippery and he looks down, surprised to see a thin white powder covering the ice that he's stepping on. He sets his jaw, because this is just the icing on the cake, isn't it, because as he looks around he can see that everything around him is icy and ice isn't exactly high on the list of his favourite things in the world.  
  
Even so, it's worth it.  
  
The further forward Steve goes as the fog enshrouds him, he can feel something in him lift, but not in a pleasant way; almost as though his soul is being surgically excised from his body. He feels lighter, but unnaturally so, and everything inside of him feels as though it has turned to ice. This feeling is all too familiar to him, but he presses on, supressing a shudder. The fog does not let up, and in fact seems to get thicker and heavier as he wears on. It leaves him feeling uneasy, that feeling of being watched without having the ability to know where or who it's coming from. He pulls his shield off of his back and straps it on his arm, glancing around warily.  
  
 It feels like it's been hours since he's been walking, but he knows somewhere in the recesses of his mind that it actually has been closer to ten minutes. The landscape is agonizingly unchanging - the steady stream of fog and snow and ice is broken only by an occasional tree in his path, as white as the snow around it, with a smattering of leaves on its branches that look like they might have been red in another world. Even the bright hues on his shield seem to be fading in this cold, colourless wasteland.  
  
The cold he feels is not unlike that of the plane crash - what he remembers of it, anyway - because it's the kind of cold that entraps you, body and mind, and spreads until you can't feel anything else anymore. _Cold is only the absence of warmth_ , a voice in head that sounds suspiciously like Tony says, but he knows that that principle doesn't apply here as it does on Earth. The cold is tangible.  
  
Soon after he gets used to this constant cold - he thinks it might be an hour or two into his journey, but he can't be sure - fatigue settles into his bones like lead weighing them down. At first, it's just the typical wear and tear of the journey that he's undertaken, and he ignores it, but it escalates from there to the point where, minutes later, he's sunken to his knees on the cold, hard ground, thinking that maybe he'll just lie down and sleep, maybe for a few minutes. It couldn't hurt, could it, in a land where time seems to have no meaning, standing still instead pressing forward like it should, like he is?  
  
Steve can't seem to move from there, no matter how hard he tries and it doesn't make _sense,_ dammit, he's a super-soldier. His hands grip his shield for dear life, pressing it into the ground, and his head bowed, eyes facing the snow and ice underneath him. Frozen, he thinks, frozen again. How apt, what a fitting end. He closes his eyes.  
  
 _Oh, come on, Freedom Fries._  
  
Steve's eyes snap open, but he doesn't move.  
  
 _Are you really going to give up on me that easily? I mean, jeez, I know I'm a twat, but you came this far. I thought you'd - well, I was wrong. Carry on with your emotional breakdown, don't mind me._  
  
"Tony?" his voice is cracked and small in the silent, barren valley. "Is that - "  
  
 _Don't ask me, I don't know. Yeah, I know, first time for everything, right?_  
  
"I'm imagining this," he says, out loud, because it's a relief to hear something, even if it is just his own voice. Of course, the Tony in is head picks up on this.  
  
 _Oh, so now who's talking just to hear themselves speak? I think you owe me an apology for the many times you've accused me of doing this. Hypocritically, I see now. But yes, I should say you are imagining me._  
  
He knows that saying that this is not a good indicator of his mental state would be a gross understatement. All the same, the warmth of Tony's voice, even imagined, helps to cut through the numbness that the cold has encased him in. With difficulty, he stands up.  
  
 _Yeah, there you go. I knew you had it in you, Cap. Hallelujah. I think a rousing chorus of Star-Spangled Banner is my sworn duty right now. Ready? Three, two, one -_  
  
Steve laughs, and the sound echoes far and wide. He takes a step forward.  
  
 _Yay! That's right - one step at a time, you can do this, soldier on, all of that motivational bullshit. One small step for Capsicle, one giant leap for Tony Stark's salvation._  
  
Slowly, slowly, the bone-deep, chilling exhaustion fades away, and with it Tony's voice (now singing _and I would walk five hundred miles, and I would walk five hundred more_ ). He's sorry to hear him fade away gradually, but he reminds himself where he's going and who he's doing it for and he steels himself and walks and walks because he knows for certain that, yes, he would walk a thousand miles, a million if he had to, if it meant that he would be the one to fall down at Tony Stark's door, if only just to see him one more time.  
  
Soon, all that's left of that figment of his imagination is an echo.  
  
 _Soldier on._  
  
Steve walks through thick, dense fog that's chilling his blood.  
  
 _Soldier on._  
  
Steve walks through a knee-high snowdrift, sharp wind blowing in his face, ignoring his every nerve screaming out in protest.  
  
 _Soldier on._  
  
Steve walks and tries not to notice how heavy his shield feels on his arm, how heavy his every limb feels.  
  
 _Soldier on.  
  
Soldier on. _  
_  
Soldier on.  
  
Soldier on._  
  
Steve walks and walks and walks until he can't walk anymore, and he unrolls the sleeping bag from his back with numb, clumsy fingers. It takes the last vestiges of his strength to nestle into it, and it doesn't provide much comfort from the cold air or the hard ground, but he can deal with the discomfort. He sleeps out of pure exhaustion, the kind that he hasn't felt since before the serum. He dreams of ice, growing around him in sheets where he lies and encasing him, trapping him for another seventy years or eternity, and he's screaming but no one can hear him through the sheer volume of ice around him and the cold is _unbearable_ -  
  
His eyes snap open and the first thing he registers is pain, and the second something altogether more disturbing. The sight and smell of decaying flesh infringes upon his senses and he goes into red alert, snapping his head up from the ground. This sudden movement sends an explosion of stabbing pain into the left side of his neck, and he lifts up his hand to the offending area. It comes back angry red and wet, but there isn't time to attend to that, because the thing that was feeding on him looks very angry at its meal being interrupted. The creature is vaguely humanoid, but grey skin is hanging off of its shape in folds, the colour of decay, revealing in some places a disgusting reddish-purple flesh and in others, yellowing bone. He can see cruel yellow eyes, razor-sharp teeth and long nails that could easily pass for claws. A shudder passes through Steve just by looking at the thing, because it is everything that is wrong and unnatural in the world so that it's presence, it's mere existence, chills him to his very core.  
  
The creature lunges at him at the same time that he reaches for his shield, and its nails just graze his arm, doing little damage because of the Captain America suit beneath his clothes.Steve, though still groggy, tosses the shield at the repulsive zombie-like thing with unerring accuracy, taking its head off with it. The headless body writhes for a few seconds before going still.  
  
Steve sprints over to his shield, cleans it with some snow, and looks around warily for more such creatures. To his relief, he finds none. It takes a few moments for him to realize that his neck is still profusely bleeding. He uses the shield as a reflective surface to examine the wound - it isn't very effective, but all the same, he can detect some kind of angry hole in his neck that's gushing blood at an alarming rate. He isn't particularly adept at medical even at the best of times, which this is far from, but he tries to do his best with what he has. He grabs a handful of snow and presses it to the wound in an attempt to clean it, and hisses from the burn. Ripping off a strip of fabric from his already torn sleeve, he wraps it around the wound as a makeshift bandage. The bleeding slows.  
  
The rest of the day, as he trudges wearily, humming _and I would walk five hundred miles, and I would walk five hundred more_ under his breath (even as a figment from beyond the grave, Tony is as irritating as ever in terms of getting annoying songs stuck in his head), follows much like the last, except for more appearances by the zombie creatures and less from Tony's voice. The only time he sustained injuries more severe than bruises or cuts was when about ten of them ganged up on him at once, shrouded in the fog so as to surprise him, and he was forced to go hand-to-hand with some of them. By the end of the day, he sports a gash on his forehead and three shallow  ones on his chest in addition to his neck wound.  
  
 They're vicious, vile creatures, sure, but they scare Steve at a deeper level than he'd care to admit. Zombies are undead, he knows this much, and he is in the land of the dead - so is it so strange to assume that the souls condemned to Helheim turn into those _things_? He begins to second-guess the entire mission, and his dreams are plagued with Tony, grey-skinned and rotting, lunging at him, drinking his blood.  
  
Days pass. He's not acutely aware of how many, because time doesn't have as much meaning here as it does back home. The sky is ever a dull shade of grey, no sun, moon or stars to signify the passage of time. Steve walks until he's exhausted and collapses for a few short hours of sleep before getting up again to repeat the horrible, horrible cycle.  
  
The zombies revisit him in different ways than before as the days wear on. Sometimes they show up as a likeness of Bucky, or Peggy, or even Howard, or any of his old, dead friends, emerging eerily from the fog. Never Tony, though, and he's grateful for that because he doesn't think he would be able to summon up his resolve and decapitate it if they decided to prey on a wound still so fresh in his mind. He manages to destroy them and the hallucinations they project, but it plays havoc with his mind, until he's not sure what's real anymore and what isn't. The only thing that cuts through his chilled, fatigued mess of a mind is, ironically, another figment of his imagination - Tony's voice.  
  
 _Hey, hey, Steve! They're not really them, kill them. Kill them all. Yeah, I know that sounds rich, coming from me, as I'm not real either, but I'm real-er. And they're bad. Okay, sorry, carry on with your badassery.  
  
And I would walk five hundred miles, and I would walk five hundred more ...  
  
Steve, you should probably change your shirt-bandage things. They'll get infected and then we'll both be dead and that's not acceptable. The world, nay, the whole time-space continuum would fall into complete, unfixable disarray.  
  
... just to be the man that walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door ... sorry, it's stuck in my head, now, too.  
  
God, Steve, I'm sorry for any and all of the horrible things I've ever said to you. Like, ever. This is - no one's ever - thanks for trying to save me._  
  
But then they come back; his old friends, the friends that died when he was unable to do a thing about it. They look on accusingly as he treks across the barren land, the force of their icy glares enough to drive him to his knees and drive the air out his lungs in a desperate shout for - something. He yells until his throat burns and his lungs give way, screaming their names, his name, Tony's name, as if hoping to summon him by invoking it. Even so, they look to his pitiful sight. He hears Bucky saying, _you'll go to hell and back for him, but you'll just let us go, Steve? What does he have that I didn't?_  
  
Steve soldiers on, still, but his pace slows to a crawl towards the last few days, from the injuries, the cold, the exhaustion, the hallucinations. Sometimes he has to force his mind to focus sharply, painfully, on the memory of Tony's last, whispered "Goodbye, Steve" in order to remember why he's putting himself through this at all. He's not going to let another friend die on him, not after so many more before him. Not if he has anything to say about it.  
  
After what has to be years of journeying, but what Steve knows is only nine days and nine nights, exactly, he sees a bridge indistinctly through the fog on the horizon and he nearly sinks to his knees and cries with relief. Instead, he takes the last few heavy footsteps until he reaches the golden bridge - it's less splendorous than the Bifrost, sure, but to see something that sharp and bright and vivid after his ordeal is a feast for his eyes nonetheless. Only a few minutes later does he see the rushing, dark river flowing for what must be miles beneath it.  
  
He steps on to the bridge, and some of his weariness is immediately absolved, perhaps by the golden roof casting a warm light like he hasn't seen in far too long, or maybe it's just some kind of magic, or an absence of it. Cautiously, he crosses the remainder of the bridge, his heavy steps echoing beneath him along with the sounds of the river's fast current.  
  
Darkness awaits him, he can see now, as the bridge finally peters off to an end. This makes his heart sink - he was hoping for his quest to be over soon. However, before he can make it off, a tall, heavy figure steps in front of him. He has a build like Thor's, and his clothing is definitely Asgardian, though less ornate than Thor's and Loki's; his cloak is hooded, and his eyes are shielded from Steve. "Who goes there?" he rumbles.  
  
Steve steels himself and says with as much confidence as his wounded and weary body can muster, "Captain Steve Rogers."  
  
"What is your business in the land of the dead?"  
  
"I - I'm here for Anthony Stark, who was taken to Helheim unjustly."  
  
The man surveys him. "I am Modgud, keeper of the Gjoll bridge. Whosoever passes this bridge does not do so without getting by me heretofore, and I know of no Anthony Stark."  
  
Steve's world threatens to shatter as some desperate part of his brain tells him that this whole journey, it was all in vain, that Loki had lied to them all. "He was escorted here by Fenrir," he explains desperately.  
  
To his immense relief, Modgud's frown clears ever so slightly. "I see. Then, I have but few words for you, Captain Rogers of Midgard. Behind me, you will find the road to Hel, where you will find Hel's hall. Within the hall is a room called Eljudnir, where you will find Hel and your friend Anthony. Be wary of peril."  
  
He steps away from the bridge and lets Steve pass. Steve thanks him hastily out of a habit too ingrained to break, and he hurries down the dark road, wondering what possible danger could await him that he hasn't faced already. The road is surrounded by high cliffs, and here the air is tinged with red. Wryly, he thinks that the atmosphere could not be more stereotypical if they had a sign hanging from the forefront of the cliffs proclaiming "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here." Oddly enough, though, the road, as hard and cold as the terrain he had just crossed, has no major obstacles for him. He has to stop once or twice to catch his breath and check on his injuries, but other than that, it is the least wearisome part of his journey. There are no zombies, mist in the place of fog, there are no hallucinations, and the cold is less biting. He wonders, with some unease, of what perils Modgud was referring to.  
  
At long last, Steve can see in the distance a massive, ostentatious building. The only earthly thing he can think to compare it to is pictures he's seen of the Pantheon in Rome, though this hall of Hel's far dwarfs even that majestic structure. As far as he can see, the hall is made of solid gold and marble. So enthralled by it is he that, as he approaches it, he nearly runs into a some kind of golden structure in his fascination. Confused for moment, he looks at it and realizes what it is and groans loudly.  
  
A large gate, fifty feet tall, separates Steve from the hall and from Tony.  He pushes it feebly, but it appears to be made, like every damn thing in here, of solid gold and doesn't budge.  
  
He sighs. "It's never gonna get easier, is it?"  
  
*  
  
Death, just like most things, does not live up to Tony Stark's expectations.  
  
"This is _boring_ ," he says for what must be the millionth time. He's gotten up from his so-called seat of honour next to Hel's throne in her special secret room in the middle of the massive hall that's brimming with dead people who all seemed to be whispering his name accusingly when he passed through. Now he's pacing around in the room called Eljudnir. His theory initially was that it was Hel's sex torture dungeon, but the lack of evidence dictates otherwise (thankfully).  
  
Hel is sitting on her large golden throne in the centre of the room with her forehead resting on her temple wearily. It's been weeks since he died, or he thinks it has, because time doesn't flow quite correctly here - sometimes it ebbs, and sometimes it rushes. Still, he can't get quite used to looking at Hel, who looks like something out of a Dark Knight movie. Half of her face and body is that of a gorgeous Asgardian-esque woman, with flowing blond hair and green eyes the exact shade of Loki's; the other half, conversely, is decaying and rotting, a shadow of what it used to be. It's unsettling, to say the least.  
  
"Mortal, you speak too much," she says tiredly. She strokes the wolf, Fenrir, that tore him to shreds, now nestled on her lap, dozing, like a fucking terrier instead of a carnivorous, murderous beast.  
  
Tony snorts. "Well, you should have thought of that before dragging me to your wicked domain for all of eternity. I didn't even _die_ , lady."  
  
They've had this conversation before. Tony is tired of this, tired of death. He's still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he's going to be doing this for all of eternity, and he thinks that nothing could be worse, not even fire and brimstone. Tony can deal with pain, but boredom is intolerable. Not being able to build, to create, to calculate ever again - hell, even to sign some fucking paperwork for Pepper - is not something he wants to even consider, even though the idea of it is facing him down in the near future.  
  
"I _told_ you, I thought you were a worthy exchange in Thor's eyes for Balder. You took down two bilgesnipes by yourself, so I assumed you were as valiant a warrior as Balder is - and Thor took Balder back from me, so I thought it only fair to take you in his stead."  
  
"That is some fucked-up logic, woman. Haven't you ever heard of letting bygones be bygones? Or, you know, taking your twisted revenge on the actual people that fucked you over, instead of poor, little old me?" Tony's pacing becomes more frenetic. "Thor doesn't even _like_ me that much. Hell, I don't think any of them like me. In fact, _I_ don't like me sometimes - why am I saying this? What have you done to my brain-to-mouth filter? God, being dead _sucks_. Is this how it's like for all of eternity? I fucking hope not, I'd rather kill myself - oh wait, ha ha, I can't, you already did the fucking honours."  
  
"Don't make me regret it, Tony Stark." She looks like she is, though. Maybe, he thinks, he can wear her down just by talking too much (God knows he done it to enough politicians). If anyone can come back from the dead by the sheer power of their obnoxiousness, it's Tony Stark, he reasons. At this point, he's just systematically going through everything he can think of: the door doesn't open, there are no other places to get out from, and Hel isn't particularly susceptible to puppy eyes and pleading, nor is Tony particularly adept at either.  
  
"Oh, so we're on a first name basis now? You know, Hel, your name doesn't quite have the same ring to it as Tony Stark. Stark means strong in German, did you know that? Hmm, does German have roots in Old Norse? JARVIS - haha, whoops, no JARVIS, I keep forgetting that. I miss JARVIS. I miss everyone, actually, to be truthful - why am I being so truthful? What the Hel? Ha, did you see what I did there? No? Never mind ... so, speaking of JARVIS, maybe I should do some redecorating here, install an A.I. - no, the same general decorum, lots of morbidity, but just with more - me. In fact, if I'm going to be in it for the long haul, can we rename it? Starkhelheim. Helstarkheim? Come on, give a little here. So, yeah, I was thinking, gold and marble is so last century. Throw some titanium in the mix, and maybe some reinforced glass. We could make it a regular Stark Tower, only less, well, phallic. That was a mistake on my part, in hindsight, though I blame Pepper. I blamed Pepper for too many things, I guess. One of my biggest regrets in life, probably. Though my biggest would be St - _hey_! No. Stop this witchcraft immediately, you heathen. Hey, if you want to keep the gold - I like gold, gold is forever - or is that diamonds, I can never remember - you might want to splash in a little hot-rod red. Iron Man colours, yay - "  
  
"Were you always this vexing?" Hel interrupts, massaging her temples, and Tony can _hear_ the resemblance between she and her father.  
  
"Yeah. It's a problem, I'm working on it. Or I was, until life was cruelly snatched away from me by that beast nestled on your lap. Do you know how much that fucking _hurt_ , by the way? The last few minutes of my life were fucking _agony_. It wasn't nice. Oh well, at least I got to see Steve - the last thing I ever saw in life, those dark blue eyes of his. God, he's attractive. That was my last thought. Thanks to you. And then, you know, I died in those ridiculously muscled arms of his. I hope he isn't too broken up about it. I don't see why he would be, though, I'm nothing special, really. _He_ is, though, he's something else - "  
  
Tony breaks off and sighs heavily. His listless pacing comes to a halt and he sinks down against a stone wall on the far side of the fairly small room. Hel sighs too, but he's fairly sure it's one of relief that he's finally stopped talking. Not that he cares, because he knows that never going to get out of here. "I don't like being dead," he says finally, quietly.  
  
Hel doesn't say a word.  
  
His head dips down to rest on his knees. _Always a way out_ , he remembers Steve had said to him on the day that they met. Not this time, he thinks. Not always. Tony Stark has finally met his match.  
  
And then, like the devil - but the sweetest, most wonderful angel - as if he had invoken him just by thinking about him, he hears a commotion by the door of Eljudnir. To his tremendous, massive, immense (because one adjective just doesn't fucking cut it) shock, a disheveled, half-in-uniform, bloody, injured Steve Rogers staggers in, falling to his knees as he does so.  
  
*  
  
"Steve, oh my God, Steve - how - what - Steve? Steve, are you real?"  
  
Steve smiles wanly, still in shock at the sight of Tony, not alive but there, actually speaking to him, looking at him. This entire time, he's been preparing himself for failure, for the inevitable _it's not possible go home and get over him_ \- so much so that seeing that he's succeeded has caught him off guard. The sound of Tony's voice after so many long days of silence and his own screams is the sweetest thing he's ever heard. "As real as can be," he manages.  
  
"But - Steve! What - how - Steve?" Tony, upon the sight of him, had dashed across the room and is now kneeling in front of Steve, exhausted and supporting a variety of new injuries from scaling the Gates of Hel, trying to keep him from collapsing to the floor from his kneeling stance with his hands on Steve's shoulders. Steve tries to keep his eyes open, to drink in the sight of Tony - his wide brown eyes, his unruly dark hair, his impeccably styled goatee, his lips drawn in a shocked grin. Steve notices that he looks different - paler, somehow, and almost translucent - but it doesn't matter, because it's Tony, it's him, right in front of him. He appears to be doing the same thing, his eyes studying Steve's for a few long minutes before he turns and asks someone, "But ... I mean, like, is this real? Is this allowed? Is he dead, too?"  
  
Steve only then notices the figure sitting on the large golden throne that dominates the room. He would be somewhat alarmed by her appearance, half like the zombie creatures and half like any other woman, in any other situation, but right now he's too tired and hurting and _Tony_.  
  
She says in an exasperated voice that is very reminiscent of Loki, "Yes, he's real, and unfortunately, it's allowed, and no, he's not dead. Are you happy?"  
  
Tony's face answers the question for them both. "Steve, I - I've never been happier to see anyone in my life - death, whatever. I mean it."  
  
"Yeah," begins Steve and winces before he can quell it, drawing Tony's attention to his wounds, his brow furrowing in concern. He reaches for Steve's neck and peels back the makeshift bandage now soaked through with mostly dried blood. Tony's touch on his skin, though unnaturally cold, sends a rush of warmth through his body. He is contented by just observing Tony, only half paying attention to what he's doing. Watching his lips shaping the words, his eyebrows moving in time with what he's saying, his fingers flurrying around his injuries. It makes him smile, despite his pain and fatigue.  
  
"My God, Steve," he's saying. "What _happened_ to you? Which brings me to the more pressing question, what are you doing here in the first place?"  
  
Steve brushes Tony's worried hands off of him reluctantly as he makes to stand up on his own. Tony steps back, but follows suit with a hint of anxiety. "I thought that was obvious, Tony," he says, somewhat confused, perhaps because of the Tony voice that was egging him on throughout his journey. "I'm here to save you. To bring you back."  
  
Tony seems taken aback by this revelation. "But - and all of that - " he begins, motioning towards the blood covering his Captain America uniform and his tattered shirt over it. "Just for me?"  
  
"Well - yeah." Steve says, nonplussed.  
  
"But ... why?"  
  
Steve looks into Tony's eyes, and it breaks his heart to see the genuine confusion, the question in his eyes. Does he really think himself so insignificant, so worthless so as to not even merit a second chance at a life that unfairly stole away his first?  
  
"Tony," he says uncertainly, and then adds with a hint of desperation, trying to make his friend understand how much he means, and the ragged hole that he left behind. "We need you. I need you."  
  
Tony's lips curve up into a small smile, but his eyes remain troubled. "You risked your life to bring me back from the dead? That's - that's really - that's - no one's ever done that much for me. I don't even see why _you_ would do it, I mean, you're Captain America, you're perfect and amazing and the world actually needs you - and I'm just - well, I'm a thorn in the side of pretty much every person and-slash-or government organization that I meet, not to mention that I'm the least of any of you guys, I mean, I'm the furthest from superhuman that it gets. I'm defective, I'm just an invalid in a shiny suit, yet you still - ? Thanks, Steve, really, I mean it. I don't deserve you."  
  
Steve is horrified by now. This isn't what he had expected at all. "But - Tony - how can you not know how much you mean to us all? You''re not worthless, you're - "  
  
"Tell that to your dear friend Howard, because _he_ never said as much - _what are you doing to me, Hel_?"  
  
Steve, along with Tony, turns his worried gaze towards the goddess behind Tony's head, who is smiling slightly. "One cannot lie in the afterlife," she says.  
  
Tony turns back to Steve and says, "Yeah, well - I mean. Sorry about that, you weren't supposed to - "  
  
"Tony," he interrupts firmly. "I - we all love you, and need you, and we're nothing without you. Do you understand that?"  
  
He just waves his hand, grinning again, and Steve bites his lip.  
  
"So, I mean, is that it?" Tony's question, after a short silence in which Steve and Tony just  study each other, is directed at Hel again. "Can I just waltz on out of here with my white knight over here, or is there a catch?"  
  
The smile has been wiped off of her face, replaced by something vaguely frustrating - it's hard to tell, seeing as half of her face is quite dead. "There is always a catch, as you say, Tony Stark. When Thor came for Balder, I said that the only way he would be allowed to leave is that if each of the warriors of Asgard professed their love for him. And they did, shockingly enough," she frowns. "So, I suppose your Midgardian team must do the same for you. Then you are free to go."  
  
Tony looks over at Steve, with a kind of _great-now-we're-totally-screwed_ look on his face, that makes his heart clench. He needs to talk to Tony about this, make him understand. But there will be time for that later - years and years for that.  
  
"Actually," he speaks up, and pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket, that has surprisingly survived the wear and tear that the rest of his body and possessions have undergone. He had kept it safe throughout the entire journey, knowing that the outcome rested on its fragile shoulders. "Thor warned me about this, and I'm way ahead of you."  
  
He clears his throat and squints at the paper, trying to make sense of the smudged handwriting. He turns to Hel as he speaks.  
  
"Okay, so first - they're not technically part of the team, but still. 'Tony, my life would not be the same without you, and no matter what I might have said in the past, it would have been much, much worse without you there. You once said that I complete you, and the opposite is true too, even now. Chasing after you, trying to get you to behave at board meetings, tying your ties, getting you to sign papers ... me from two weeks ago would have scoffed at the idea of missing that, but I do. I miss it all, I miss you. No matter what our relationship status might technically be, Tony, I love you. Please come home. Love, Pepper.'  
  
"Next, um. 'You're an idiot, Tony, and an ass, and I've always been the first to tell you that - but you're my idiot and I'm not gonna let you go that easily. I know you left me the War Machine in case something ever happened to Iron Man - but, man, those are big shoes to fill. The world needs Iron Man, not War Machine - and _I_ need Tony Stark, and I'm sorry I never got to tell you that. Rhodey.'"  
  
Steve doesn't dare look up at Hel, or sideways at Tony to see either of their reactions. He feels vaguely embarrassed for some reason, at baring these people's souls without them even present, but he continues.  
  
"Clint says, 'Tony, you never stop poking fun at me and Tasha, you always beat me at MarioKart, you drink all the coffee and you're generally a pain in the ass. But then again, you've saved all of our asses more times than we can count, you fund our ridiculously lavish lifestyle without complaint (not that you should, you rich bastard), you stay up all night just to upgrade my bow, and I don't really know where I'm going with this, except that no matter how annoying you are, it just isn't the same without you, and it won't ever be. So yeah. I hope that's love-y enough. From Clint."  
  
The next message is in all caps, and Steve has to quell the desire to imitate the writer's booming voice (he had tried to write a rhyming ballad, but Steve reminded him that they were kind of on a schedule). "'Friend Tony - you are a true warrior and deserve to die the death of one such man, not dragged into the abyss unjustly by my niece.'" Hel harrumphs here, but doesn't say anything. "'Truly, you belong in the halls of Valhalla - but even that not for years, for our team of warriors is not complete without the man of metal, nor our hearts without Tony Stark. You alone have taught me much about Midgardian ways, including the sorcery you refer to as technology, and have introduced me to things I could not live without - yourself being one of them.' That's from Thor," he finishes unnecessarily.  
  
"'Tony, I think you're quite unable to understand exactly how much you've done for me, as you always abruptly change the topic whenever I try to thank you for it. Despite that and other annoying habits, you are quite possibly the best man I have ever known. You accepted me when no one else did, you took me in, and best of all, you treated me like you treat everybody else - not like a monster, not like a bomb. Until I met you, I had always kept a gun with me, just in case maybe one day it could work and it would be over - but you changed all of that for good, just by being you and nothing else. All of that besides, we still have a laundry list of scientific breakthroughs we need to make, and I can't do them without you. No science partner could ever match up to what you are, Tony. So, come back. Love, Bruce.'  
  
"'Stark - Tony, whatever. I like to think that I know you better than most - yes, I know it's because I was a triple impostor and I'm aware that you'll never trust me again, but the point is, I _know_ you. I know that underneath that arrogant veneer is a genuinely good man - maybe a little broken, but, I mean, aren't we all? The point is, I don't want that person that you truly are to have been hidden your entire life - I want to give you a second chance, for you to be the amazing guy that the five of us already know you are. And when you come back, if you ever reference this message again, I _will_ strangle you with my thighs, and contrary to your belief, you will _not_ enjoy it. Love always, Natasha.  
  
"And that's that," Steve says with an air of finality, his mouth dry from the monologue, finally looking up at Hel. Her face is inscrutable. He chances a sideways look at Tony, who looks like he doesn't know quite what to do with his face. He sees red creeping up his neck, and smiles, hoping that Tony finally gets it.  
  
"Wow," he says dazedly. "I guess I know who should write my next press release."  
  
"So," Hel says after a short silence. Steve swears he can see a smirk playing around her lips. "What of your love, Captain Rogers?"  
  
She looks at him expectantly. Steve stares back for a moment, hoping it wouldn't come to this (because what could he say? How could he convey how he feels for Tony in mere words?). His mind races, and he glances at Tony, whose gaze is averted. The mere sight of his friend sends a rush of memories into his consciousness.  
  
***  
 _ **before**_  
  
Steve sees Tony - Iron Man - go up into the portal, carrying the nuke on his back. He realizes then that he was wrong before about him, and when Tony opens his eyes, a million years later, and recommends some Middle Eastern food or other, he thinks he could collapse with relief.  
  
*  
  
Despite their earlier friction, Tony immediately offers Steve a place to live in Stark Tower after the New York battle. He eventually cedes to the invitation, after the rest of the Avengers have all settled in. Tony treats him cordially, but he is aloof and doesn't joke around like he did the first day they met. It's radically different from how he interacts with the rest of the team, being his usual obnoxious self. It makes him sad, just a little bit, but he has his own demons to deal with that take up most of his thoughts. There is discord between the pair of them, and sometimes it culminates into explosive arguments, but not often.  
  
Tony has personally designed his enormous bedroom, and it takes Steve's breath away when he sees it. It's beautiful, with huge windows, and it looks more familiar and homey than anything he's ever seen since waking up into this brave new world. Other than a few tell-tale signs of the twenty-first century - a mini-fridge, a flat-screen TV - it's like he's back to a time where things were more simple. When he sees the adjoining sun-dappled room with easels and canvases and brushes and pencils and anything else he could ever possibly want, it makes him want to rethink Tony Stark, and what exactly he's hiding underneath his facade.  
  
One night when he can't sleep - which is quite possibly every night - he gets out of bed and goes to the gym to break a few punching bags to try and make himself feel half-way human again. On the way, he hears a "Hey, Cap," and whirls around to see Tony sitting at the rarely used dining table with whiskey and one of those tablet things, beckoning him to join him. He does so, warily, but the conversation seems innocuous enough, dealing with some upgrades Tony's thinking of making to the uniform. Soon, though, after he thinks Tony's had a bit too much to drink, they start talking about a lot of different things. The argument on the Helicarrier comes up, and he thinks Bucky and Peggy and the Howling Commandos do as well. He mentions Howard, but Tony's face darkens and he changes the subject. Steve remembers extensively talking, perhaps out of a loose-tongued exhaustion born of many sleepless nights, about how displaced he feels in the twenty-first century.  
  
The next morning, and it can't have been more than five hours since he and Tony had their talk, Tony comes up from his workshop looking like a crazy person halfway through breakfast with his hair unruly and bags under his eyes. He presents Steve with a large pile of pages bound together, the top one of which says "A Guide to the 21st Century (and the Five Decades Before It) for Steve Rogers, Compiled by Tony E. Stark." When he tries to thank Tony for it, he practically flees from the gratitude back down to his lab.  
  
Things between them are pretty okay from that day forward.  
  
*

  
When Tony and Pepper break up a few months later, Tony doesn't leave his lab for six straight days, and Steve gets worried. Bruce tells him to just let him alone for a little while, because he needs to be alone, but Steve doesn't listen. With the stupid courage of the man who charged into the thick of World War II with incredibly minimal military experience, he goes down to Tony's workshop and tells JARVIS the override code he had extracted from a sleepy and/or drunk Tony a couple of weeks back.  
  
"Gladly, Captain," JARVIS says, and Steve always marvels at how Tony somehow created a person with a mind of his own. "The chances of sir accidentally killing himself in there before he chooses to face the rest of you is significantly higher than either you or I would like it to be, and I would rather it not come to that."  
  
Steve nods, heart sinking, and steps in tentatively. "Tony?"  
  
"Go away," he hears the muffled voice, and he has to smile.  
  
"Not getting rid of me that easily," he calls back.  
  
"Well, isn't that a shock."  
  
Tentatively, he makes his way through the maze of unfinished inventions, work surfaces and vaguely frightening looking lab equipment, to where Tony is standing, back hunched as his fingers fly over one of the many blue screens that surround him on all sides. He is pale and drawn, dark circles lining his bloodshot eyes, and there is an emptying bottle of alcohol very near to him.  
  
"Tony, you can't go on like this," he says.  
  
Tony doesn't even look up from what he's working on. "Watch me."  
  
Steve sighs and berates whatever stupid part of his brain thought that this was going to be easy. "Look, I know that you and her - "  
  
"It doesn't matter. I was - she - it's for the best. I was tired of seeing her cry. Anyway, she deserves better than me. I'm no good for her." His words slur ever so slightly, and Steve sees red.  
  
"I know that's not what she told you, but I know you believe that because you're such a self-loathing little _shit_ you can't believe for even a second that someone could ever love you. But she did, and I know this - and what's more, I know that I - we all love you too, Tony, and we know that you're hurting but we genuinely care about you, for God's sake, so stop _wallowing_ in your own self-pity and destroying yourself, piece by piece - "  
  
He breaks off, breathing hard. He's never said so much to anyone in his entire life, he thinks, and he sees that Tony too is shocked into stunned awareness.  
  
"I - that's a nice sentiment, Cap, really, but just leave - "  
  
"No." Steve is having none of Tony's crap today, but his voice is one of forced politeness. "It's movie night, and I insist that you join myself and the rest of the team for our viewing of Star - something."  
  
"No thank you," Tony says, equally polite, and turns away, still bent over a keyboard.  
  
"Well, then."  
  
Steve can't quite believe himself when he grabs Tony from the waist before his reflexes, slow from the Scotch, kick in. Before either of them know it, he's slung Tony over his back, taking advantage of his strength against a friend for the first time, and he's carrying him up the stairs. To Tony's credit, though, it's not for want of trying to escape, and Steve is getting just a little bit annoyed at Tony's fists making contact with his back, along with his cries of "put me down, you heathen!"  
  
He doesn't though, until they get upstairs, and he sets Tony down on the plush, movie-night sofa amongst four rather nonplussed Avengers.  
  
*

  
When he's not saving the world, or preventing his teammates from being too stupid, Steve draws. He draws the view from the roof of Stark Tower, he draws random bits of New York scenery, and he draws his friends. He draws Clint first, when he's perched bird-like on the couch playing a game called Mario Kart, eyes intensely focused on the TV screen. A few days later, he draws Natasha, the pencil flowing seemingly of it's own volition around the soft curves of her face, when she's smiling at something Clint says. Bruce is next, when he's fallen asleep during midnight poker, his glasses slipping down his nose. Finally, Thor is  drawn while they're watching some film about puppies, with his eyes alight and his face broken out into a grin; Thor, he thinks, was just made to be likened on paper, his perfectly symmetrical features making the pencil strokes too easy for Steve.  
  
Eventually, Tony is the only one of the team that he hasn't drawn. It's not that he doesn't want to, but because he finds that, bizarrely enough, he can't. He's tried a couple of times: at his wicked grin when he wins big at poker, at his wide-eyed excitement when he presents Natasha with some kind of collapsible machete, at his feigned exasperation when Dummy begins to prod angrily at Steve when he accidentally brushes against Tony and makes him stumble; but none of these seem to work, somehow. They aren't the Tony that Steve wants to immortalize on paper.  
  
Steve finally gets his chance on a day when he's not expecting to draw anything but a snowy panorama of New York City as he grabs his sketchbook and puts on a light jacket despite the transparent precipitation-proof dome that the roof of Stark Tower offers on days such as these. He opts for the stairs instead of the elevator, and as he's about to open the glass door that leads to it, he sees someone else on the bench that he usually sits on to draw, and he knows right then that he's not going to disrupt Tony as he sits there, knees drawn close to his chest, clad in a black jacket in the light snow - apparently, he didn't want to be protected from it, as the glass dome is nowhere to be seen - and sipping coffee from his limited edition Iron Man mug. It's not the ideal view of his face, just a profile, but Steve knows that he won't forego this opportunity because this is _Tony_ , pure and simple, and this is who he wants to draw. He quickly pulls open his sketchbook, trying not to make too much noise and ruin the moment, and starts drawing. He sees Tony murmur something, presumably to JARVIS, and he smiles slightly at the response. Not a smirk or a sneer or a too-wide grin, but a genuine smile and it makes Steve's heart hurt a little, but in a good way.  
  
Steve can barely tear his eyes away from his subject to begin drawing, the pencil strokes rushed because he doesn't want to be found out. Still, he tries to take great care outlining the curve of Tony's lips, the small sparkle in his eyes, the steam issuing from the Iron Man mug and his breath, his lean frame, his dark hair flecked with snowflakes and ruffled from the cold winter wind, the stubble on his finely shaped jaw. It isn't the most exact likeness by the end of his hurried sketch, but to him it's perfect, exactly what he wanted it to be.  
  
*  
  
Some time passes, and Steve finally beats Clint at the Mario Kart game, after solid weeks of alternately training and racing against him and whoever else is available. This time, the two of them and Thor were playing. Thor's Baby Luigi comes graciously in tenth place ("alas, but it was a fine battle, friends!"), but Steve's Mario and Clint's Bowser are neck and neck the entire time, with them sitting furiously at the edge of their seats and occasionally yelling slurs at one another - Steve is surprised at how colourful this game makes even him.  
  
Clint immediately calls rematch, because, according to him, "your boyfriend was helping you."  
  
He hears Tony cackle from where he's sitting behind them on the sofa with a tablet. True enough, the only reason that he managed to speed ahead of Clint at the last second was because of Tony yelling tips for him over his shoulder, seemingly without even looking at the screen. ("Hey, Steve, shake the controller when you're in the air, it gives you a boost. Keep B pressed, it holds the green shell behind you and you can deflect reds. No, Steve, it doesn't matter that she's a girl or a princess, you have three reds, _pelt_ her with them for God's sake, there is no gentlemanliness in Mario Kart. No, no, no, no need to swear, potty-mouth, a blue shell isn't bad right now, just brake and let Clint pass you, it'll get him first, hahahaha.")  
  
Steve feels a flush creeping over his face as he mumbles incoherently at the boyfriend comment. Tony pretends to be wounded at Steve's percieved rejection and Thor is looking at the both of them with an inscrutable expression.  
  
*

  
Tony has always been the best with the press, but he's left them in the lurch at this particular Avengers press conference. No one fields uncomfortable or unanswerable questions like Tony does, so well that the so-called journalist isn't even aware of their query being avoided. But, for some unexplained and unprecedented reason, he isn't here, and Steve is currently struggling with a question about how he stands on gay rights. He's trying to be diplomatic in his answer, without giving too much away or favouring either side expressly. That's what Tony told him to do, at least, despite how strongly he feels on the subject  
  
However, at that exact second, and the entire team seems to sag with relief, Tony decides to saunter in, wearing a snappy grey suit jacket over a T-shirt and jeans and sunglasses. "Sorry I'm late," he calls out, "Had things to be, people to do... what'd I miss?"  
  
And just like that, the crowd is charmed, instantly his.  
  
He's wearing his empty publicity grin, his every movement exhuming _Tony Stark, genius billionaire playboy philantropist_ , and Steve doesn't like it, because this isn't the Tony he knows, but some fake, hollow shell. The Tony who smells of coffee and burnt metal with eyes the colour of whiskey that shine with new ideas and twinkle as some witty quip leaves his mouth and are averted when he ever does anything genuinely nice, and the Tony who smells of whiskey and burnt metal with eyes the colour of coffee that are heavy with a unique kind of loneliness as he drinks at three in the morning with no one around but the demons keeping him awake, just like Steve; that Tony is gone, locked in behind a plastered grin and designer sunglasses, the facade of a facade.  
  
The reporter that asked Steve the question repeats it for Tony, snapping him back into reality.  
  
"Oh, well," Tony says without a missing a beat, seating himself at the empty chair next to Steve. "I think the answer to that is pretty obvious, don't you, honey pie?" He blows a showy kiss towards Steve, whose throat constricts immediately, heat rushing to his face.  
  
The crowd titters and the question is forgotten.  
  
*

  
Steve is awake the earliest out of them all, as per usual, and is pouring himself coffee when he's met with an altogether unusual sight: Tony Stark awake earlier than noon, and what's more, actually dressed properly in a black suit that Steve thinks must be custom-made because it accentuates every asset of Tony's in a way that makes him look lean and muscled, but still sophisticated, unlike Steve with his burly biceps that scream _Neanderthal_. Steve pointedly tries to ignore how _good_ he looks in it, with his hair still damp from a shower and a  red tie hanging untied from his neck.  
  
"Morning, Cap," he says, harriedly, rushing into the kitchen and grabbing the coffee mug that Steve had poured for himself without a word of question or apology. Steve smiles ruefully.  
  
"Going somewhere?" he asks unnecessarily.  
  
"Board meeting in California," Tony answers, looking much less like he's about to fall over from lack of sleep as he gulps down coffee like a dying man. "Pepper'll rip me a new one if I don't show up."  
  
Sometimes Steve forgets that Tony is a part of Stark Industries, partially due to the fact that he doesn't generally go to meetings but also because it's hard to believe that his scatterbrained friend, running to and from his lab at odd hours with his hair rumpled and his T-shirt and sweatpants sporting burn holes and motor oil stains, is also an incredibly successful businessman.  
  
"Well, this has been fun," Tony says presently, "But I gotta jet. See you if I make it out alive."  
  
He makes to leave towards the elevator, but Steve calls him back after a few seconds, noticing something. "Tony, your tie."  
  
He looks down. "Oh. Um, well," he stammers, looking vaguely embarrassed. Steve raises an eyebrow. "Pepper's in Malibu - and - okay, so I've never actually learned how to tie a tie. I don't know how it happened, me being me and all, but it did. Don't look at me like that."  
  
Steve stifles an incredulous laugh, if only because Tony looks so abashed. "Come here," he says, a chortle leaking into his voice. "Let me."  
  
Tony reluctantly steps back towards Steve, who pulls him closer because apparently Tony thinks Steve can tie his tie from two feet away. Their proximity sends a rush of warmth through Steve and he tries to quell the blush he feels creeping into his face. His fingers perform a Windsor knot on autopilot as he tries not to concentrate on the electricity passing through him and Tony every time his fingers graze his chest through his shirt. He studiously avoids looking at Tony's face as he does, though he can distinctly hear his heavy breathing.  
  
He straightens when he's done, and pats the tied tie, accidentally coming into contact with the arc reactor in Tony's chest; Tony recoils the moment that he does, and Steve apologizes profusely, not sure exactly what he did and why he's apologizing for it.  
  
"Calm down, it's not that big of a deal."  
  
Before he can quash it down, a question that's been burning him for a long time forces its way out of his mouth. "Hey, Tony, what exactly is - "  
  
Tony cuts him off smoothly, as though he was expecting it. "Let's just say that they forgot to give the poor old tin man a heart," he says, and winks as the elevator door closes in between them.  
  
*

  
"Hey, I tried, okay? I really did, and therefore no one should criticize me." Tony takes a drink from his coffee cup as he walks with Steve through Central Park, returning from what ended up being a very short trip to the Guggenheim. "I'm a self-admitted philistine."  
  
Steve shakes his head and grins. "Yeah, okay. Thanks for trying, anyway."  
  
"Oh no, don't even try pulling that on me. That's even worse than your kicked-puppy look. That's your you-kicked-me-but-I'm-so-damn-nice-I'm-just-gonna-keep-smiling-and-yapping-at-you-taking-it-bracingly-because-that-great-of-a-puppy look. It's awful. Stop."  
  
Steve laughs out loud, but Tony's already changed subjects. "Hey, look! A hot dog stand. I'll buy you a hot dog to make up for it. Hell, I'll buy you the hot dog _stand_ if you want. You don't want? Okay, wait here. Sit on that bench. I'll get the hot dogs."  
  
Central Park is one of the few things that Steve likes better in the twenty-first century. It's nicer, somehow, more friendly than it was in the forties. A few people recognize him, though he's just in his leather jacket and jeans, and he happily signs a poster, a few trading cards, and a T-shirt for them. He eyes Tony at the hot dog stand, who seems to be taking great care with the condiments and returns finally about five minutes after that, looking quite pleased with himself as he hands Steve his hot dog. He bites into it as soon as he receives it, not knowing how hungry he was until he smelled the deep-fried meat up close. Tony looks scandalized as he does so.  
  
"No, no, no, look!" he says, and points to what Steve thought was just sloppy mustard-squeezing on Tony's part, but actually seems to, bizarrely, spell out 'ONY.'  
  
"What ... ?" Steve asks uncertainly, and Tony looks like he wants to punch himself in the face, not something he sees often.  
  
" _Fuck_ ," he says, "I gave you the wrong one. All that toil and suffering, and I gave you the wrong one. Look," he points to his own intact hot dog, spelling 'STEVE' on it in mustard-letters. Steve takes one look at it, and Tony's forlorn face, and bursts out laughing like he hasn't in a long time. Tony looks at him for a second and then joins in ruefully.  
  
*  
  
" _Tony_ ," escapes from his lips, a worthless cry, because he _felt_ the light leave Tony's eyes as he went limp in Steve's arms. "Tony, no, please, don't. Tony. Tony? _Tony_!'  
  
He doesn't know how long he sits there, gripping Tony's lifeless body and screaming his name like a fool at the top of his lungs, until his throat is raw and burning, until his cries are choked with sobs. He's vaguely aware of the rest of the team coming to join him, their gasps of shock, and them trying and failing to pull him away from Tony. Only Thor eventually succeeds, and he envelops Steve into a massive bear hug, as though trying to shield him from the sight that's permanently etched into the back of his eyelids. He closes his eyes and a sob racks through his body as he thinks about everything that could have been, if he weren't just a few minutes too late.  
  
***  
 _ **now**_  
  
Without thinking, or perhaps because he thought too much, Steve kisses Tony, the desperate act of a desperate man. The force of his lips crashing against Tony's makes Tony stagger back a few steps into one of the stone walls of the chamber. Steve presses him against it as Tony makes a small noise of surprise but begins to kiss back with vigour. His lips are wintry, too cold, on Steve's, but that doesn't matter right now because the scratch of coarse hair against his mouth and the faint taste of coffee even here on chapped lips screams Tony and that in itself sends warmth and electricity cascading down his spine as he explores Tony's mouth with his own, still pinning him to the wall, enjoying a newfound use for his strength. After what seems like decades passing within seconds, Steve reluctantly pulls back, breathing deeply. He sees Tony's eyes flutter open, and they are as wide as saucers.  
  
"Um, wow. Cap. Captain. Capsicle," he stammers breathlessly, and Steve sees with some deep-down satisfaction that he is nearly speechless, a very rare occurrence for one Tony Stark. He's leaning against the wall that Steve had pushed him against as though without it he'd fall over. "That was - something."  
  
"Steve," he corrects, and both of them are smiling from shock and relief and joy, Steve because he had a second chance, because he ended up seeing Tony again, because even if he couldn't bring him back, at least he could do that. At least now he would know.  
  
Hel clears her throat behind them, and the spell is broken. They turn to her expectantly, and appprehension threatens to swallow him whole. If after all of this, he's turned back emptyhanded, he doesn't think he'll be able to make it this time around. She's smiling, though, and the sheer relief coursing through him makes him weak-kneed for a moment.  
  
"Alright, just take him, then," she says, forcing exasperation into her tone. "He talks too much, anyway."  
  
Tony lets out a whoop and says something along the lines of "I'm back, _bitches_!"  
  
Steve is too shocked to do anything but stare dumbly at Hel. Not once in the entire time that it took for him to get here did he think that it would be quite this easy, just as he, in the barren wasteland on the road to Hel, had never expected it to be that hard. Bizarrely enough, he remembers abruptly the Disney princess movie marathon he had with Natasha, she insisting that they were "pop culture staples." _The spell can only be broken by true love's first kiss_ , he recalls from one of them and he ducks his head and grins. Perhaps those stories had more stock in reality that he had first guessed.  
  
Hel beckons to Tony, and he suspiciously steps towards her throne. She presses a hand to his chest and something seems to glow inside of him for a split second and the only word to describe how he looks after that is more opaque, more whole. Hel then shoos them out, and they comply quickly before she changes her mind.  
  
Steve's hand unconsciously seeks out Tony's as they make their way silently through the halls milling with the dead, whispering and muttering nothing that Steve can make out, but making the hairs on neck stand on end anyway. Part of him is reminded of the mess that his mind had become on the way here, and seeing and hearing the condemned like this makes his brain teeter close to that edge again, threatening to fall by the wayside. He determinedly avoids looking at the dead lest he spot a recognizable face. Just then, Tony squeezes his hand, still enveloped in his, and he turns to see him smile a little bit and he realizes just then how this must be to Tony - Tony who was sure that he too was sentenced to this brand of death for eternity.  
  
They eventually make it to the outside doors of the hall, and as soon as they step out, the silence is broken.  
  
"Steve," Tony says, and his name in Tony's voice is music to his ears, "Seriously, thank you. I really don't deserve y - "  
  
Steve shuts him up in what is now his favourite way to do so. If he had thought their first kiss was forceful, it had nothing on this one - the adrenaline and relief and love surging through him would have knocked Tony on his back had he not disentangled one of his hands from Tony's and held his back steady. Tony's hand grabs onto Steve's face (he winces slightly as his fingers graze the wound on his neck), steering his face even closer to his, and everything is right again; the dead man and the dying one, both made whole again with just the touch of one another as they kiss in front of the hall of the dead, ironic because they both are more alive than they've ever been before.  
  
After they break apart, both breathing hard, Steve says, "You deserve me. You deserve every good thing that happens to you, you deserve friendship and love and heaven and _life_ , and I wish you would understand that, Tony."  
  
Tony sighs but only says, "You know, I've never really appreciated just how strong you are, Captain," and winks saucily. Steve shakes his head, but they have time now, all the time in the world and Steve is never going to take that for granted again.  
  
"Honeymooning in Helheim? Only you, Tony Stark," drawls someone from behind them and Steve whirls around and is shocked to see the last person he expected: Loki, looking small on a massive black horse that appears to have eight legs - Sleipnir, he guesses.  
  
"Well if it isn't my least favourite person in the entire world," Tony says conversationally, but Steve detects a hint of bewilderment in his tone.  
  
"That's not a good attitude to have towards your white knight, Stark," Loki says snidely. "Do you expect to make it back on your own, what with the good Captain over here so severely injured and yourself of little use outside your metal toy? In fact, I wonder how you even thought to scale those gates with your current level of physical fitness." He motions towards the enormous gates behind him, dwarfing him even further, and Steve has to reluctantly agree with him: even he, with his enhanced strength and stamina, barely could make it over the Gates of Hel without collapsing.  
  
"So if you care so damn much about us, why didn't you save Steve here the trouble and get me back in the first place?" Tony challenges, not moving. Sleipnir and Loki are still a few feet away, their black and green forms looking rather ominous surrounded by the red sky above them.  
  
"It would not have worked. See, my daughter has a weakness for that disgusting, animalistic desire your people refer to as love. Had I come up to her after you died and asked her for your soul, she would have laughed in my face. No, no, it could not have worked. But now, you are fair game and I am here to escort you back to Midgard."  
  
Steve is suspicious as well. "Why?" he asks.  
  
"Thor asked me to," Loki says simply, his smoky green eyes betraying nothing.  
  
"Yes, and you love Thor that much, don't you?" Tony says sarcastically.  
  
"It would do well for him to believe so, yes," Loki says, his mouth curving into a malicious smile, but his eyes soften and Steve thinks that that isn't the case, but he doesn't press the matter.  
  
Eventually, he and Tony are mounted on Sleipnir, with a lot of complaining from Tony because he doesn't like horses and also because he somehow ended up squished between Loki and Steve. "Not that I mind the latter," he adds, and Loki grits his teeth.  
  
Loki spurs Sleipnir and he bounds over the massive gate like it's merely a two-foot-tall hurdle in a horse race, and that's the closest Steve ever felt to flying. He grips Tony's back in front of him extra hard, and he's not sure if it's because he doesn't want to fall off or he doesn't want Tony to.  
  
On Sleipnir, they reach the Gjoll bridge much faster than Steve did (or perhaps it's because there is no desperation this time around, the crushing fear that he would be too late), and Loki whispers some words to a distrustful Modgud. Then they careen off down to the bridge and into the dark valleys that will haunt Steve's nightmares for many years to come. When they've been riding in silence for many miles, Steve finally asks Loki about the zombie creatures.  
  
"They are called draugar, singular draugr. They are vile and they are cruel, because they belong to nowhere, have to no world to call their own. Merely in between, if you will, for all of eternity. They will stay away from us, do not fear." Loki's smile is cold steel, and it sends a shiver down his back.  
  
Sleipnir gallops on, and Tony is surprisingly silent.  He occasionally makes a comment or two, but he seems to be contented by just taking in the barren landscape around them.  
  
They  seem to have covered half the ground of Steve's entire journey in what can't be more than a few hours. Eventually, however, Loki announces that Sleipnir is tired, and that they are going to rest for a few hours. As Steve dismounts, he winces as his injuries sting for the thousandth time. Tony notices.  
  
"Steve, are you okay?" Tony asks anxiously as Loki leads Sleipnir off to curl up on the hard, frosty ground somewhere a few feet away from them.  
  
"I will be," is Steve's only answer, because he doesn't want Tony to worry but he doesn't want to lie either and _God_ it hurts.  
  
However, Tony picks this time to be emotionally intuitive. "Take off your shirt," he orders. "Let me see."  
  
"How do I know this isn't just an excuse - "  
  
" - To see your abs? It partially is, but seriously."  
  
Steve complies reluctantly and awkwardly, what with the Captain America suit underneath the shirt, and looks down at Tony's sharp intake of breath. He, too, is shocked to see his torso, which is at this point basically a mass of dried blood and thick, ropy, scabby scars - what skin that is visible is covered in black-and-blue bruising. Tony sits him down on the wintry earth and takes a seat next to him, inspecting his back which he suspects is similarly marred.  
  
"I hope the pair of you aren't about to copulate out here in public," Loki calls out, and Steve turns to see his eyes glittering with amusement despite the disgust on his face. Loki's eyes, he realizes, are so much more expressive than he ever gave them credit for.  
  
Steve is about to call back a reply, but Tony grabs Steve's face and forces his head back to face Tony, kissing him softly but pointedly, and Steve's heart is thumping in his chest like a hammer as he wraps his hands around Tony's shoulders to pull him closer, because this is the first time Tony has kissed him instead of the other way around and the rest of the world, no longer important to him, seems to melt away around them. He can just hear, through buzzing in his ears, Loki's sound of revulsion. As Loki turns away, murmuring to Sleipnir, Tony breaks away. "Sorry for molesting you like that."  
  
"Yeah, like I did the first two times?" Steve teases and Tony grins. He begins to fret over how to deal with Steve's injuries, and Steve tries to soothe him by reminding him about his accelerated healing and ends up telling him that pressing snow to the wounds makes it feel better just so he has something to do (and he isn't lying, because it really does). Steve lets him do that and closes his eyes, thinking that maybe they're in hell and it's colder than he ever imagined it to be, but it doesn't feel all that bad this time around.  
  
The silence they've lapsed into is broken by Tony saying hesitantly, "Maybe we should, uh, talk about this."  
  
"Talk about what?"  
  
Tony leans forward and kisses him again. Steve doesn't think he'll ever get used to it, the way it makes him feel like he's supercharged with electricity yet calm and warm and happy no matter how cold the hard ground is beneath him. "That."  
  
"There's nothing to talk about," Steve answers. "It's taken one of us dying to finally figure it out, but this is - this is us. That's all there is to it."  
  
"Really?" Tony says doubtfully, through a sharp intake of breath from Steve as cold snow makes contact with the hole in his neck. "No strings attached, no long-term commitment, you don't want any of that?" It might be Steve's imagination, but he can hear a note of disappointment in Tony's voice.  
  
"Tony. I like you. A lot." He berates himself for sounding like a third-grader. "Anyway, I think I have for a long time."  
  
"How long?"  
  
"I don't know. I realized it when - remember those hot dogs in Central Park?"  
  
Tony grins at the memory. "That was the time I was going to tell you that I - you know - but I screwed up the hot dogs and I thought it was a bad omen, so. I waited. Probably shouldn't've."  
  
A smile passes across Steve's face. "Anyway, so the point is, yes, I want - I mean, I don't want to rush you into anything or ruin what we have already, but I mean, eventually, yes - I want to - you know - go steady with you."  
  
"Which in normal-people speak is like - you know, proper boyfriend-boyfriend and all."  
  
"I doubt that's how normal people say it, but essentially, yeah."  
  
Tony sighs, and Steve is confused. "Okay, look. I mean, I obviously, like, like you, but I owe you enough to tell you this much: I'm no good for you. You had the right idea when you first met me. I'm no good for anyone, I break everything I touch, and in the long run I don't care about anyone but myself and I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to ruin - all that you are, everything that you could be, with someone better."  
  
Tony ends the rushed speech with a self-deprecating shrug, but Steve sees exactly how much he believes in what he just said, and the twisted bitterness is ill-suited to his beautiful eyes. It hurts him more than he ever thought an unspoken feeling could.  
  
"Tony," he says desperately. "There _is_ no one better. Not for me."  
  
"Please," Tony scoffs. "I'm an asshole, I'm a narcissist, I'm a drunk - "  
  
Steve is shaking his head disbelievingly as Tony ticks his purported qualities off with his fingers. "No," he interrupts. "Dammit, Tony, _no_. You're an unbelievably _wonderful_ person - no, _shut up_ for God's sake. I had it all _wrong_ way back then - you put up this front, this arrogant douchebag facade so that - I don't know why you do it, so that no one can get close enough to you to hurt you. But really, you're - from that day with the nuke to the day you died, you were always willing - too willing - to throw yourself in front of the rest of us, to sacrifice yourself - you _don't_ fight only for yourself, you fight for everyone, you fight for the greater good and even when you do fight for yourself, you're doing it to redeem yourself for sins that you can hardly be blamed for. You are a hero, Tony, and that goes even further than the battlefield, but in every single thing that you do. You spend so much of your time doing things for us - upgrading our equipment without us even asking you too - that you have to forego sleep to keep up with your _job_. Yet, still, you never ask for thanks - you don't think you deserve it, but you do. Any time I - or really, any of us - is feeling down, you go out of your way to cheer me up, you offer to do the most outrageous things, you make me laugh, you _listen_. Anytime you see something - or someone - broken, you try your damnedest to fix it because that's just how you are: you're wicked smart, you're hilarious, you're generous, you're altruistic, you're _wonderful_ , and I wouldn't have you any way other than exactly how you are." _You are sunshine after weeks of rain_ , he feels like adding. _You are the the taste of coffee in the early morning mist. You are that late-night, apropos-of-nothing smile when you wake up from a good dream. You are the taste of thunder, the smell of a hurricane, you are all the little things that make life worth living._  
  
The entire time that he's speaking, Steve doesn't break eye contact with Tony and he doesn't know what to make of what he sees in his eyes: the cold, distorted amber that they were has melted into something warmer. For a split second, Steve is scared that Tony is going to deny what he just said, or worse, that he's going to brush it off with some joke or other, but all he says is "Thank you," and kisses him again.  
  
*

  
The rest of the trip back to Earth is uneventful by anyone else's standards, but to Steve it's punctuated by many important occurrences. T _he first time I made Tony laugh since he died. The first time Tony made me laugh since he died. The first time Tony and I shared a bed - or at least, a sleeping bag. Watching Tony's eyes flutter closed, so near to my face that I can count his individual eyelashes._  
  
Before they know it, Steve can see the line in the horizon, signifying the place where Thor had dropped him off, before he set foot into this wasteland. He breathes a sigh of relief, because he knows that after they cross that line, all their troubles are over; Tony will be properly alive again and then so will everyone else.  
  
Or so he thought, because the second they cross this threshold, Loki leading Sleipnir by his reins, Tony gasps sharply and collapses to his knees, struggling for breath. Steve panics as the small, fragile world that he had rebuilt from the ground up ever since Hel said _take him_ is threatening to shatter around him.  
  
"I don't understand," he says, "Hel said he could go, why is he dying now what's wrong what's going _on ..._ "  
  
He kneels down next to Tony and shakes his shoulders, muttering frenetically, fear clouding his vision and his senses. Tony weakly pushes him away and takes the hem of his shirt and lifts it up, showcasing six long, white scars and the arc reactor, twistedly beautiful when it glows which _it isn't doing right now._  
  
Loki peers down at the pair of them and wrinkles his nose slightly. "What is that thing, anyway? Were it not for it, perhaps I would have succeeded in my takeover of Earth."  
  
"I - it's - I don't actually know," Steve admits. "Something - it keeps him alive, it keeps his heart going. He can't live without it for long."  
  
Loki chuckles softly. "The man of metal has a broken heart. Fitting, I suppose," he says musingly, flicking his eyes towards Steve.  
  
"Hardy har har," Tony wheezes as he pulls the reactor from his chest, examining it. Steve is somewhat shocked to see quite how deeply it's embedded in there, how deep the hole in his heart is; it's an unsettling sight. "As many times as I've heard Pepper joke about oh haha Tony Stark has a hole in his chest where a heart should be - anyway, it's probably that Earth tech doesn't work here - " He is cut off by a coughing fit. "I've been feeling it failing for some time now, but I thought it wouldn't stop altogether - whatever, if I make it back, I should be okay."  
  
He doesn't look like he'll be okay: he's drawn and pale and sweating as though he has a fever.  
  
All the _shoulds_ and _ifs_ are churning around in the pit of Steve's stomach, making him nauseous. This can't be happening again, Steve's world spins dizzyingly as dread engulfs him. He he picks Tony's gasping body up, despite his feeble protests, carrying him bridal style and it reminds him too much of taking his lifeless body - two weeks ago? three? he can't remember - back to Stark Tower after that horrible battle. He carried him  then, too, just like he's doing now, except backt then there wasn't that damned thing called hope making everything that much worse. He knows to hope even now is futile, though, because how could he ever have thought that  this could work, how could he have caught a break just this once? What's dead stays dead and Steve knows this better than he'd like to. He looks down at Tony, barely conscious and convulsing in his arms, his face contorted. Steve wonders then what it must feel like, the _pain_ and so much more besides, for your heart, the very thing that keeps you alive, to be killing you with every beat.  
  
So wrapped up in these thoughts that he doesn't want to think, he barely notices the Bifrost opening, and the rainbow bridge shrouded by the heavens that had him so filled with wonder doesn't even deign to move his eyes away from Tony's this time around. It physically pains him to feel how laboured Tony's breathing is in his arms and how pale he is and the entire time he's thinking _please no not again we were so close it can't be please don't go.  
_  
When the roof of Avengers Tower comes into view, when Steve feels it, hard and unyielding, beneath his feet, when Loki lifts his hand in goodbye, when the portal disappears, when Tony's breath comes back to his lungs in another sharp gasp - only then is Steve able to think clearly again. He looks down at Tony, still in his arms, but now struggling with the force of the man who doubles as a superhero.  
  
"Put me down, Steve."  
  
Steve laughs from sheer relief, but doesn't comply.  
  
"Seriously, Steve. I'm not your princess. I'm a grown man. I mean, I know I'm short, but this is just embarrassing. Steve?"  
  
The sun has set in New York City, and Steve doesn't know how long he's been gone. All he knows is that the air feels warmer and it's that much easier to breathe since the last time he's been there. The view from the roof of Stark Tower is breathtaking, the panorama of a glowing, after-dark New York City unlike any other, but Steve doesn't care about any of this right now as he carries Tony towards the elevator and presses the down button.  
  
"Steve, please. I'm not returning to my own home like this. It's demeaning."  
  
Steve still doesn't respond as he steps into the elevator.  
  
"Steve. Steve. Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve. Captain Rogers. Star-Spangled Douchebag? Capsi-mmmmmmmmmmfgh."  
  
Making Tony stop talking has never been this enjoyable, even though he has to bend down in order to meet Tony's lips in their current situation. Tony wraps his hand around the back of Steve's neck, returning the kiss eagerly.  
  
"I don't appreciate that, I'll have you know," Tony breathes after Steve pulls away.  
  
"Didn't seem like it to me," Steve says, unable to hold back a grin.  
  
"This counts as sexual abuse, I think."  
  
The elevator dings before Steve gets to shut him up again, and he cautiously steps out of the doors, glancing around for the other Avengers.  
  
"Put me down, you heathen." Tony's voice reverberates a little too loudly throughout the silent tower.  
  
"As you wish," Steve says and drops him onto the plush white carpet in front of the television of the living floor of Stark Tower.  
  
" _Fuck_. Ow. Do you want me to die again?"  
  
Their exchange, rather loud in volume, must have reached the other floors of the Tower, because they hear a flurry of elevator dings and steps on stairs and all of a sudden, they're face to face with Clint, Natasha, Bruce and Thor.  
  
"Hi?" Steve offers. He knows what a bizarre sight the pair of them must make: a dead man  very much alive and scrambling to get up from the floor, rubbing his head irritatedly; and him, bloody and tattered and much the worse for wear, but grinning like a maniac all the same.  
  
"Tony," Bruce breathes, echoing the sentiments of all four of them. "He's - you're  - Tony?"  
  
"Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated," Tony says, wearing his shit-eating grin that Steve hates to love. He's just sat up from where Steve unceremoniously dumped him when Dummy charges at him, making him fall flat again as the considerable bulk of the robot presses into his chest. "Guh. Ugh. Hi, Dummy, Daddy's home. Did you really miss me that much? My God."  
  
"We all did," booms Thor, and Steve is happy to see his customary beam back in place.  
  
"Yeah, I heard. What was that, Barton? _Life just isn't the same without me?_ " Tony winks up at Clint from where he's lying pinned to the floor by Dummy, whom he's awkwardly petting.  
  
"I will disembowel you, Stark," Clint says, rolling his eyes, but he's smiling.  
  
Tony manages to disentangle himself from Dummy and he stands up, dusting himself off and stretching.  
  
"It's good to see you, Stark," Natasha says quietly, hanging a small ways away from the rest of the crowd surrouding Tony.  
  
"Likewise, Romanoff," Tony replies with a smirk, and after a short pause, he relents and his face breaks out into another grin. "Oh, come here, you."  
  
To general shock, Natasha grins too, and lets Tony envelop her into a hug. A few more greetings and smiles and hugs are exchanged after that. Steve just hangs back, content just watching his friends and the bright expressions on their faces.  
  
"Hey, hey, hold up a second," Tony says abruptly. "My saviour needs medical attention. Look, he's all torn up and stuff."  
  
"I'm fine," Steve protests. And really, he is. "Accelerated healing, remember? I'll be as right as rain in a couple of hours."  
  
"Are you sure?" Tony asks, his brow furrowing slightly. Steve abruptly recalls the fact that they never decided whether they were telling the others about the whole boyfriend-boyfriend thing (he inwardly cringes - his romantic euphemisms have regressed from ignorant to simply immature), and he panics a bit.  
  
"Yeah, yeah," he waves his hand.  
  
"Yes!" Thor says suddenly. "We must not forget the valour of the good Captain in our joy at the return of friend Tony! Songs of your bravery, Captain, will be sung for many years, for this feat that you have accomplished is no mean one."  
  
"Yeah," Clint agrees. "Seriously, Steve, thanks. This - for everything." Bruce and Natasha also chime in.  
  
Steve feels himself going red. "It was - "  
  
"It wasn't nothing, sugar plum," Tony interrupts and Steve jumps before remembering that Tony calls everyone stupid nicknames all the time. "So yeah, all hail Steve. Let's order a pizza in his name."  
  
"Tony, it's three in the morning," Bruce reminds him. "Nothing is - "  
  
"I'm Tony Stark."  
  
Steve has never been this glad to hear that obnoxious statement issuing from Tony's lips, and one look around the room is enough to tell him that the others all feel similarly.  
  
"JARVIS, you up?"  
  
"For you, sir, always," says JARVIS and Steve swears he can _hear_ JARVIS' smile. "And, might I add, welcome home. It _is_ good to see you alive and well once again."  
  
"Love you too, honeybunch," Tony smiles. "Now. Pizza?"  
  
As Tony and JARVIS are bantering, and by God it's nice to hear the life return to JARVIS' voice, Steve and the rest settle down on the sofa, and he fields questions from the other teammates about his trip to Hel. He feels guilty for brushing them off, but he'd really rather not relive any of his memories there, and so gives them a rough overview, trying his damnedest not to think about but knowing it will revisit him in his nightmares tonight.  
  
Suddenly, Natasha leans in close to his face. "Steve," she says slowly. "None of these draugar tried to kiss you or anything like that?"  
  
Steve can feel his pulse rise. "No, that's ridiculous," he says quickly. "Why?"  
  
"What about Hel?" He shakes his head, panicking slightly because what if Tony doesn't want them to know? He's not even sure _he_ wants them to know. "Loki?"  
  
Clint laughs, but he can see the shrewd glee in his eyes as well, and Steve tries not to keep his laugh too jumpy.  
  
"Right ... so then, do you have any explanation for those bruised lips of yours? And - " Natasha's eyes flick sideways, "Tony's, as well?"  
  
There's a short pause. "Um. We, uh, fell. On our ... mouths."  
  
"On each other's mouths, more like," Bruce snickers (of all people. Steve feels somewhat betrayed).  
  
Steve sits perfectly still, not knowing what course of action to take. Tony apparently hears the exchange, though, because he grins and says somewhat wistfully, "So the jig is up, huh? So soon?"  
  
"Sweetie, the jig was never down in the first place," Natasha smirks.  
  
"Ah, well. Pizza's coming in a few," Tony says, and puts his arm around Steve, who's sitting next to him. By now, Bruce, Clint, Natasha and even Thor have leaned in closer around Steve and Tony, like a pack of hyenas around their prey.  
  
"Who kissed who first?" Natasha is the first to demand, with a strange sort of urgency.  
  
"Um," Steve says, taken aback. "Me."  
  
"Yeah, he pinned me against a wall, the animal. My back still hurts from it," Tony adds conversationally, much more eager to share than Steve, to a fervent _dude_ -too-much-information look from Clint.  
  
Natasha lets out an uncharacteristic but still frightening victory cry. "Pay up, fools," she grins as Bruce and Clint take out their wallets, while Thor plunks a few gold coins on her lap, all of them grumbling.  
  
"Not fair," Clint says. "The circumstances were unprecedented."  
  
"Even so, I know Stark. He would never."  
  
"That's not fair, you impostor," Tony complains. Steve would also interject, but he's still rather shocked at the goings-on. They couldn't even have known about Steve and Tony's feelings - hell, Steve barely knew about his feelings. How could they have bet on it? When he voices his thoughts, his team's reaction is also rather bizarre: an uproarious bout of laughter from everyone.  
  
"Cap, you two were the most _obvious_ idiots on the planet," Clint says earnestly. "We had you figured out from around the day you beat me at Mario Kart."  
  
Steve and Tony alike are rather taken aback at this. "What?" Steve asks incredulously. "I didn't even - "  
  
"You two are stupid," Natasha finishes for him. "End of story."  
  
Tony sniffs. "I resent this, I'll have you know."  
  
Natasha ignores him and Bruce continues. "Okay, so what did Tony say and-slash-or do - because we know he'll always ruin the moment - right after?"  
  
Steve relents and considers this. "Um, he called me Capsicle - "  
  
Thor's cry of joy is actually deafening, and Steve can't hear for a few seconds, and tunes into Natasha saying something like "...was in hell, he couldn't run away. I guarantee you, if it happened - "  
  
"Nay, Lady Natasha, 'twould not be as you said it was. Tony is a warrior, a man of valour. He would not flee from a simple matter such as - "  
  
"Shut up, Thor," Natasha interrupts, seething imperceptibly while Tony preens.  
  
And so it continues for the next God knows how long: the rest of them pepper Tony and Steve with questions for a while, then the pizza arrives and it's exactly like another one of their late-night post-mission parties, except there's a lot less 'shut up, Tony' and a lot more poking fun at Steve and him. Clint goes so far as to begin to suggest celebrity-esque couple names for them, and then makes fun of Steve when his face starts to turn red. (Clint immediately discards 'Stony' and 'Teve,' saying they sound ugly, and sounds triumphant when he comes up with 'Stark Spangled Banner,' only to have Bruce strongly object to peals of laughter from the rest of them.)  
  
At one point while Clint is doing this, at around four AM, Tony makes to climb over the back of the couch that he's sitting on, presumably towards the liquor cabinet, as he says, "God, I need a drink."  
  
Steve, who's sitting next to Tony, puts a hand on his shoulder - not firmly, but a mere caress.  
  
Tony looks down at him, expression inscrutable.  "Seriously, Steve, I've been a high-functioning alcoholic from the age of, like, thirteen. I think this is the longest I've gone without some hard liquor since nineteen-eight - "  
  
"Tony, don't," he says softly, a request. He doesn't know quite why he asks. Tony's eyes harden for a moment, but then his face breaks out into a lopsided, but genuine, grin. An understanding passes through them just then, the understanding that while they are truly happy at the moment, what just happened - dying, going to Hel - isn't going to leave them behind any time soon. And that's okay, Steve tries to tell Tony, because he's here for him, and at the end of the day, that's all they need.  
  
"Whatever you say, sugar plum," he says to general shock and utterances of amazement from the rest of the Avengers. "Oh come on," he adds disbelievingly at their reactions, as he settles back down on the sofa, nestling almost imperceptibly closer to Steve. "It's not like I - okay, yeah maybe I do, never mind."  
  
Steve shakes his head and smiles, before leaning in on impulse, pressing his lips against Tony's; he lets out a soft _mmph_ of surprise as the gentle strength of Steve's kiss that makes him flump against the back of the sofa. Tony kisses back enthusiastically, running his hands along Steve's back, sending electricity down his spine just as warmth rises up in his body as he pushes Tony more firmly against the couch, taking his face in his hands. Steve swears he could live in this moment forever, though he knows it will be over far too soon: the taste of Tony, of coffee and citrus, on his lips; the smell of Tony, of metal and rain, all around him; the feel of Tony, of his chapped lips and coarse goatee and callused hands and lean muscle, all over him; and the plush sofa beneath them and the catcalls of their friends and the whir of machines and the faint smell of pizza around them, because all of that means that they are home, that they are where they belong. Steve knows then that maybe this won't be easy (because when is anything when it comes to Tony Stark?), but it's the best damned thing that ever happened to him all the same. Right now, there is no him and there is no Tony but there is just _them_ as a single entity and their love, or something even sweeter, and everything is as it should be, for better or for worse.

 

**Author's Note:**

> As the story goes in mythology, Baldr was killed by Loki and Hermodr traveled to Hel to retrieve him. She said that he could only return if every person and thing could prove that they loved Baldr by weeping for him, which is where I got the inspiration for this fic.


End file.
